The Futile Facade
by murkybluematter
Summary: Harriet Potter is back for a fourth year of quietly masquerading as her pureblooded cousin in order to pursue her dream. There are those in the Wizarding World who refuse to see her fade into the background, however, and when the forces she's been ignoring conspire to bring her to the fore, it will take everything she has to see her artifice through. Alanna the Lioness take on HP4.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Quick thanks to everyone who suggested titles for this book. I finally found one that kept with the theme of alliteration and following the letters of titles of the HP books. I know it seems very ominous, but try not to read too much into it; it's only chapter one, after all. Also a shout out to everyone who has made fanfiction of this fanfiction or fan art or contributed to the forum or left reviews or told your friends about it or anything else; you all keep this engine driving forward.

 **The Futile Façade**

 **Chapter 1:**

When Archie asked his cousin to tell him exactly what had happened in the last couple of months, he never imagined the scope of the tale that would unfold. He thought the basilisk had been the feather in the cap of any and all possible adventures, but once again he'd underestimated his cousin's penchant for walking into exactly the wrong situations at precisely the wrong time. As Harry unburdened herself in the quiet hours of the morning after they'd returned from school, Archie felt a sort of hollow horror grip his lungs. His breath stalled and stuttered at her recitation, but Harry, absorbed in her memories, didn't even notice.

The fact that she'd kept a Time-Turner from him didn't bother him, though it did make him feel better about how hard it had been for him to keep up with both his and her studies the past year. The fact that she'd knowingly put herself in danger by involving herself in an investigation that had nothing to do with her on the other hand…well, he had mixed feelings about that.

On the one hand, their ruse didn't need any more complications than already arose in the day-to-day duplicity. Harry developing some sort of hero complex wasn't going to do them any favors in the long run. On the other hand, though…Archie had to admit he was proud of his cousin. He would never wish danger on her, but the fact that she took on unnecessary responsibilities was, he thought, a sign of her growing up. Harry had always been somewhat selfish in terms of the things she chose to give her attention to. They were alike in that, he had to admit. She was kind and loyal and a dozen other wonderful things, but she had never been what you might call philanthropic or one to go out of her way to fix problems that had nothing to do with her.

He just wished she could discover this wider humanitarian scope without causing herself so much _pain_. He watched as she admitted to being consumed by a dark, bitter hopelessness that Archie was having trouble even imagining. Harry looked straight through him, her eyes reliving some torment that he could not share. He could see the moment when the fractured part of herself that she'd been suppressing broke like shards of ice to the surface of her thoughts. Her eyes welled and, to his panicked dismay, began to overflow with slow tears. He could not remember the last time he'd seen his staunchly unemotional cousin cry.

As though the tears were a signal, she stumbled through the rest of the story in a tumble of words and short, almost eerily controlled breaths. He pulled her into a trembling hug and wondered with acute distress if this was the first time she'd been allowed to admit the full torture of the experience since it happened. He'd bet a lot of Galleons that she hadn't revealed to anyone else—teachers, Aurors, parents, friends—how awful it had actually been. Harry wasn't the type to let anyone worry about her. He knew, as sure as he knew that he would have broken his Healing Oath if Pettigrew had been in the room at that moment, that Harry had shoved the whole thing into the past and was only dredging it up now for his sake, so that he would have all the information he needed about what had 'happened to him,' in case anyone should ask.

He patted his cousin's head and wished with all his heart that it had been he, not she, who had lived those weeks in darkness and despair. Harry always had to be the strong one, and it wasn't fair. He knew intellectually that she had handled it better than he would have. He was smart, but he was not resourceful like Harry. He also knew that she was the stronger one, though she might not look it at the moment.

"I wish I didn't have to go," Archie whispered once her words had stopped hemorrhaging. He was to leave that afternoon on an international Portkey to Turbo, Colombia. It was exactly when his cousin needed him that he couldn't be there for her.

Harry pushed herself upright and ran the back of her hand over her face in a scrubbing motion. "You have to go, Arch. You have to have time away from England to make both your changing appearance and your mental stability plausible." She said mental stability rather sharply, as though annoyed that it wasn't something she could claim with any credibility at the moment.

"I know," he said. He did know, he added mentally. They were in too deep of late. Time away from England was the best thing for their ruse. He would have a reason not to see 'Rigel's' friends all summer, which lowered the chances of one of them messing up in front of people they couldn't afford to make suspicious. It was a miracle that Remus hadn't noticed something slightly off about their switch, even considering that Archie looked exactly like Rigel while Harry now looked completely different. He really should ask exactly how old she was at this point, but now didn't feel like the right time.

"You're going to have a great time in Wizarding Colombia," Harry said after a moment, a decisive energy back in her voice. "You're going into the Darien Gap community, right? I've heard the wizards there are very secretive. Learn everything you can, okay? I want to pick your brain when you get back. And send lots of letters, if you have time."

"I will," Archie said, if only to stop her rambling. He wished he knew how to tell her that she didn't have to convince him that she was fine—that it was okay if she _wasn't_ fine. He knew she'd take any suggestion of weakness the wrong way, though. "What are you going to do this summer while I'm gone? Play Quidditch by yourself?"

Harry cracked a small smile, though there was still a lost look in her eyes. "I don't know. I suppose…I'll find things to keep me busy. Maybe I'll practice my dives so much that when you come back you'll be like a frog chasing a falcon."

"They have brooms in the Americas, you know," Archie smiled back. "I won't fall behind, even if I have to fit practice in between saving lives." He waggled his brows in an invitation for her to be impressed.

"Yes, yes, your nomination from the Chocolate Frog Commission ought to come any day now," Harry said, rolling her eyes. They were still a bit red, which somewhat ruined the effect of her irreverence. There was a calmness in her features that reassured him, though.

Harry would be okay, with time and quiet. He could already sense the resolve that would lead her someday soon to describe her ordeal in dismissive and probably cynical terms. That was how his cousin functioned. He wished there was someone in England he could tell to look out for her, but he knew that no one could ever know that Harry had gone through that, just as he knew that Harry would not appreciate him arranging a minder for her.

Archie thought somewhat despondently that for all the things he _knew_ , there sure didn't seem to be a lot he could _do_.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

A certain amount of dissonance was to be expected, she told herself. Her recent transformation had been abrupt, and the past year had only accelerated the change. Still…she couldn't help but feel that she didn't know the girl in the mirror at all anymore.

She was taller, for one—significantly so. Poor Archie was nearly two inches shorter than she now. It was going to be a stretch to convince their family that he could grow that much in one summer away. Her musculature was more pronounced, reflecting both the maturation of her teenaged body and the vengeance with which she had taken back her health in the wake of its deterioration in that—

Well, she looked healthy now, in any case. Fully recovered. In body, at least. She knew her mind was less supple. Her dreams disturbed her on the occasions she neglected to leave a light on, and sometimes she found herself watching people more warily than was warranted.

Harry detached her focus from that train of thought with ease, re-concentrating on her own reflection. The light summer dress robes hid the fact that the Polyjuice kept her hips slim and her shoulders strong. Her hair was the same, short and perpetually tousled with ends that curled close to her face. The face itself…was leaning toward feminine, even for a pureblood. Her glasses helped to disguise some of it, such as the thickness of her eyelashes, but couldn't detract completely from the softening of her mouth and chin. She frowned at her reflection, and noted with some satisfaction that the expression gave her a sharper look. It wasn't a complete disaster, then. This could be Rigel's face come autumn, provided people believed that a certain measure of unconscious metamorphism was at work.

She plucked unenthusiastically at her dress robes, attempting halfheartedly to straighten the neckline. _Why couldn't Uncle Sirius have had a pool party again?_ she complained mentally. She would bet that Narcissa Malfoy would have declined an invitation to her cousin's birthday party if it had entailed bathing in a flooded potions lab. Instead, Sirius was having an uncharacteristically formal celebration and, although the guest list was modest, it still consisted of enough non-family members that Lily had insisted Harry dress to impress. Or at least, she amended with another long look at the plainly styled robes, dress to underwhelm.

The party was to be on the back lawn at Potter Place, where Harry and Archie usually played Quidditch. When asked why he didn't want to host it at his own house, Sirius had muttered something about Grimmauld Place not being the most welcoming sort of venue. She supposed his choice had been in deference to one or more of his guests, though whether it was the Longbottoms, who she now knew had good reason to be wary of Sirius' old house, or his cousins, who she suspected had unpleasant recollections of the dwelling from their own childhoods, she didn't know.

Harry gave the girl in the mirror a little smile, but the far away look in her eyes made it look vague and a little sad. She settled back into a frown instead and nodded approvingly at the illusion of focus it accorded. She was tired of seeing that lost expression on her face. If she couldn't fake happiness at the world around her, at least she could fake an interest in it.

She left her room and trailed down the stairs in the direction of the kitchen, where her mother was directing the last of the preparations before the guests arrived. Addy, sitting in a high chair with a mess of what had possibly been yams at one point in front of her, waved distractedly at Harry as she walked in. Harry waved back, pleased at the attention. She and Addy got along much better now, probably because the baby was losing her sensitivity to magical cores as she matured. Even Remus got to hold Addy for prolonged periods, now, and the house was much more relaxed as her sister's once frequent bursts of irrational crying had largely subsided.

"Harry, can you move our gifts to the table outside so people know where theirs go?" Lily asked as she moved between watching some sort of raspberry sauce simmer in a pan and moving her wand in deft little curling motions that were producing a pile of delicately laced doilies.

"Of course." Harry stacked the colorfully wrapped packages from the counter and wove her way toward the back door. Once she'd deposited them on a small, round table to one side, she took a look around. The yard was charming, she decided. There were white poles set up at intervals around the perimeter and thick, colorful ribbons stretched between them like muggle telephone wires. Affixed to the top of each pole were Never-Ending Bubble Wands, which together produced a canopy of small and large bubbles that sparkled in the summer sun as they bobbed and weaved on the faint breeze.

A wide open-fronted tent at the back of the lawn gave shade to the table on which the refreshments would sit. Currently, it held only an ordinary ice bucket, which despite its common appearance seemed to have royally annoyed her very frustrated-looking father in some way. She came up beside him, peering down into the empty bucket curiously. "Need any help, Dad?"

He glanced her way with a quick smile. "Ah, thanks, Harry, but I can't remember the Everlasting Ice spell. Don't tell your mum." He grimaced. "I may have intimated that I didn't need her help with a fifth-year spell. Only…" He tapped his wand on the bucket and said, "Glacies Aeternus." The bucket filled with ice. James muttered, "Ignis," and a small flame erupted from the tip of his wand. At its heat, the ice at the top of the bucket began to melt perceptibly. "See? It's supposed to be impervious to heat. If Lily sees it melting she's going to ask Sirius and everyone how I passed my OWLs." James laughed self-deprecatingly. "All those useless spells. They know perfectly well you're never going to use any of them."

Harry smiled up at him. "It's 'Glacia Aeternalis,' I think. The spell's inventor was a potioneer whose classical education was a bit haphazard. He was blessed with a gift for ingenuity and created the eternal ice spell to cool the top layer of his potions quickly without watering them down even while the cauldron was kept over the fire to heat the bottom stratum. He used Late Latin instead of Classical Latin, however, because he didn't really give a whit about spell-crafting conventions."

James blinked behind his glasses at her, then grinned. "Glacia Aeternalis." The bucket filled with ice. He plucked a piece and rubbed it between his fingers for a moment before inspecting them for wetness. "It's perfect," he declared, hooking an arm around her shoulders in a grateful hug. "You definitely have your mum's smarts, Harry—and your Uncle Remus' love of complete answers. I swear he was the last done on every test we took in school, despite knowing all the material verbatim. Just couldn't resist giving backstory, our Moony."

"I have a friend like that," Harry said, thinking of Blaise. Then her smile fell slightly. Blaise wasn't her friend. He was Rigel's friend. Blaise had hardly even met _her_.

"A male friend?" James narrowed his eyes at her.

"Never," she rolled her own, shrugging out of his arm. "I'm going to help Mum move the food out."

She left her father gazing suspiciously after her. Honestly, you'd think James would have other things to worry about. Since when had she given him any indication of being interested in that sort of distraction? She also didn't know why her dad distrusted boys so much more than girls, anyway. Personally, Harry thought females were generally the more predatory species in the arena of romance. The calculating way Pansy spoke of her potential suitors was incredibly ominous, for instance, whereas Draco hardly every talked about those things, and when he did it was in a dismissive and unconcerned tone of boredom.

She made it to the kitchen but, before she could lift one of the trays of sandwiches or cakes from the work top Sirius bounded in. He was visibly excited, which was nothing unusual, but Harry thought as she watched him survey all their preparations without saying anything that he might be a bit nervous, too. It had probably been a while since he hosted a gathering of any kind. Sirius, despite being one of the friendliest people she had ever met, was a bit of a shut-in.

She didn't think he'd always been that way. What she remembered of Diana glittered in her mind's eye. They used to go out all the time; she remembered because Archie had many a time been dropped off at Potter Place for an impromptu sleepover when his parents got the urge to drop by an event or surprise one of their friends with an invitation to dinner.

Harry had the quiet realization that Sirius must have been quite a different person back then, with different habits and enjoyments. Perhaps this birthday party was more than an unexplained desire to reconnect with old friends. Maybe it was a step back toward the life he'd led before he lost the love of his life and a large sense of his purpose with her. What had prompted it? Was it his son's ascension into society circles that encouraged him to pick up the rusted pieces of his own social life once more?

"Sirius!" Lily glided into the room, now dressed and made up for the party. "Good, I was half-afraid you'd be late. The guests should be arriving any minute now. Harry, will you man the Floo grate? Sirius, help me move this food…"

Harry abandoned her observation and settled into the Floo room to wait. She wondered vaguely who would be coming. She knew Sirius had invited some of his family members—the ones he could stand, to quote him exactly. She doubted that included Lady Lestrange.

The first ones through the Floo weren't Blacks, however; they were Weasleys. Fred, George, Ron, Ginny, Molly, and Arthur came one after another into the receiving room, all smiling and dressed gaily.

"Harry!" Molly Weasley bustled her into a hug. "How are you? You've grown a foot, I vow. Arthur, doesn't she look handsome? I told you lot to put on something nicer," she added, shooting a disapproving look toward her brood, all of whom scowled back at her good naturedly.

"I think they look grand," Harry said, nodding to the other teens. "It's good to see you all again. The party is in the back yard. Follow me."

She led them through the winding house, fielding questions left and right.

"Do you have a Quidditch pitch?"

"How many people are going to be here?"

"Is Rigel here?"

Harry turned to smile apologetically. "Rigel has already left on his internship. He'll be volunteering at a teaching hospital in the Darien Gap community all summer."

"What?" Ron looked completely nonplussed.

"That's a little random, isn't it?" Fred added, exchanging a look with his twin.

"Rigel's always been interested in Healing," Harry said vaguely. "It was an unexpected opportunity, but he's very excited about it."

"Rigel is so weird," Ginny sighed.

"Don't be rude, Ginny," Mrs. Weasley admonished her. "Oh, that is _lovely_."

They had reached the back door, and the Weasleys paused for a moment to take in the decorations. Sirius was waiting to welcome them. "Molly, Arthur, thank you _very much_ for coming. Please forgive the lack of professional entertainment."

"That's what you're here for, is that it?" Mr. Weasley smiled.

"Well that and it _is_ my birthday," Sirius smiled back. He made a show of craning his neck around. "What did you bring me? Not a puppy, is it? Because I've already got Archie for that."

"For taking on walks?" Fred asked with a mischievous grin.

"For petting, surely," George disagreed. "Rigel is above-average cuddly for a Slytherin."

"For fetching me things," Sirius said, shaking his head in amusement. "You two must be the infamous Fred and George. My son has mentioned that you aspire to a career in pranking, is that so?"

"It certainly is _not_ ," Molly gasped.

"Not until we finish school, of course," Fred cut in, looking slightly nervous.

"Of course," Sirius said, waving a hand as though no more needed to be said on the subject. "Now, if you like, I can give you a few insider tips on how the business works: what manufacturers are trustworthy, how to phrase your loan paperwork so the banks don't laugh in your face, that sort of thing."

Fred and George looked ready to kiss the ground beneath Sirius' feet, and Harry couldn't help but think that their admiration for the Marauders was about to grow closer to idolization.

Before he could get too involved in the conversation, Sirius turned an inquiring gaze at Harry and lifted an eyebrow with an amused quirk of his lips. "Not expecting any more guests? I do think we invited one or two more."

Getting the playful hint, Harry waved goodbye to the Weasleys and reclaimed her post at the Floo. The next ten minutes was a flurry of activity as guests arrived in twos and threes. The Longbottoms came through, bringing Neville, who looked curiously at Harry as she led them to the gift table. She realized she must have never met Neville as herself—at least, not that Neville could remember. She fought the tremor of unease that surfaced at that recently uncovered memory. Mrs. and Mr. Longbottom didn't seem to be looking at her with any amount of suspicion—but of course they wouldn't. She'd met them plenty of times when Alice Longbottom came to visit Lily. They just hadn't ever brought Neville with them, and she supposed now she knew why. Their child mysteriously falling unconscious and losing all memory of the event wasn't a glowing recommendation as far as play dates went.

After the twentieth group of guests had been escorted to the backyard, Harry stopped to get a glass of water from the kitchen. _One or two more indeed_ , she thought with a small smile. Trust Sirius to jump back into society with a cannonball splash.

When she reached the Floo room, the next guests were already waiting. It was Narcissa Malfoy and, to her shock, Draco. Why would he come to Sirius' birthday party? They weren't exactly close. A moment later she kicked herself mentally. He was obviously expecting to see Rigel there. The better question was why Sirius had invited him. She supposed they were relatively closely related, by pureblood standards. Perhaps Sirius was determined to reach back toward all the areas of his life he'd been neglecting.

"Please forgive the wait, Lady Malfoy, Mr. Malfoy," she said, bowing briefly. "May I escort you through to the veranda?"

"Of course, Miss Potter," Narcissa said, smiling politely. "You remember my Draco?"

"Naturally," she said, nodding Draco's direction. "Rigel gives his regrets that he couldn't be here."

Draco's face fell slightly, though he masked his disappointment by glancing about the room instead. "I didn't realize his internship started so soon."

"He says he looks forward to taking tea with you when he returns, Lady Malfoy," she added.

"Such a thoughtful young man," Narcissa said, smiling fondly. "Tell him to owl me when he returns to England."

Harry nodded her agreement. She led them toward the sound of several dozen partygoers in high spirits and left them on the terrace with a polite, "Have a pleasant afternoon."

She returned to find Regulus Black dusting himself off despite there being no visible residue from the recently cleaned Floo. She opened her mouth to greet him, but he held up a hand forestalling her. "I know the way. Potter Place hasn't changed, I take it."

She could not tell if he approved of that or not, and she was more curious about when he'd ever been to her house in any case. He was not friends with her parents and was too young to have been an acquaintance of her late grandparents.

"As you like," she said indifferently.

He paused on his way out to look her over. "You're the Potter Heiress, then."

"We've met," she reminded him bluntly.

He seemed torn between annoyance and amusement at her rudeness. She didn't know how he expected people to be friendly to him when he was unfriendly first. "It isn't terribly proper for you to be greeting the guests at Lord Black's party, Miss Potter," he told her, eyes cold. "His own Heir should hold that role, if he insists on doing without house-elves."

"Rigel couldn't be here," she said, faking a sweet smile. "I'm just filling in."

Regulus lifted an eyebrow in distain. "Do you think if you look and act like the Black Heir society will really see you as interchangeable? Do be sensible, girl. No matter that you were raised together, you ought to have been told by now that your place and my nephew's are worlds apart."

"Not so far apart today, it seems," she said, fighting an eye roll.

"That the house-elf often stands next to his master is no reflection on their respective stations," Regulus sneered.

She blinked slowly up at him. "Have you considered that any and everything you admire in your Heir comes from his relation to me? As you noted, we grew up together. I don't know if you're warning me off or just disapproving of my influence on Archie in general, but you should know that the Black Heir likes me a great deal more than he cares for you, and that if you insist on being rude I may decide that I don't approve of _your_ influence on _him_."

"You are a delusional child," Regulus said, eyes flashing in irritation.

"Go ahead and tell your nephew to stop associating with me, and we'll see who has overestimated their sphere of influence, Mr. Black." She held his gaze for a moment longer, then turned with cold dismissiveness toward the Floo to await the next arrival. She heard him scoff shortly before exiting the room and smiled to herself.

She really shouldn't have risen to the bait like that. If she had been Rigel, she never would have. There just didn't seem to be any point in putting up with his derision while she was herself. She didn't need a good relationship with Archie's uncle. What was the purpose of trying to foster one against the man's will? She'd rather save her energy for more fruitful pursuits.

The last group through the Floo looked around uncertainly as they arrived. The man was rather nondescript, but the woman was a very close approximation of Bellatrix Black. After a moment in which she questioned her eyesight, she realized this much be Sirius' other cousin, Andromeda, and her husband. A moment later, a whirl of robes and what appeared to be purple hair flung itself from the Floo and onto the floor.

"God. Damn. Stupid. Wizarding. Transportation." A young woman picked herself up off the floor with a level of resignation and utter lack of embarrassment that made Harry suspect this wasn't an uncommon occurrence.

"Nymphadora," the older woman sighed. "Must you?"

"Oh sure, like I do it on purpose," the young woman groused. "Wotcher," she added brightly upon catching sight of Harry. "Are you Arcturus?"

"She's in women's robes, dear," Andromeda sighed.

"No, I'm not Archie," Harry said, smiling slightly at the purple-haired witch's friendly expression. "He couldn't be here, so I'm showing people to the terrace in his stead."

"Oh," the girl looked disappointed. "Shame. I heard he had a bit of the 'morpher in him, and I really wanted to see how we matched up." Her hair changed swiftly from purple to blue and back again. "It's nice to meet you though," she said, sticking out a hand. "You'd be the Head's daughter, right? Nice place he's got here—I knew they paid the higher-ups more than they'd admit."

"Dora, dear, you're rambling a bit," the man said, glancing apologetically at Harry. "I'm Ted Tonks, Miss Potter. This is my wife, Andromeda, and our daughter, Nymphadora. She works at the DMLE under your father."

"Please don't call me that," Nymphadora put in with false cheer. "And I work very _very_ far beneath your dad—don't expect he's even heard of me, in fact. I've heard of you, though. You're Harriett Potter."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," she said. "Just Harry is fine."

"My kind of girl," Nymphadora said, pleased. "Just Tonks for me, then."

"All right," Harry agreed, smiling.

"Anyway, you're the one who came up with that new potion they're going to let us play with, aren't you? Potter's Portable Protection Potion, right?" Nymphadora—Tonks—said eagerly. Harry had to wince at that ridiculous name. "We saw the first demonstrations yesterday. We all thought it was the Head who'd come up with it out of his little joke line, but then I heard it was you who thought it up. Neat stuff, that. The Department of Mysteries is trying to modify it so that it'll block out sound—to use again banshees or sirens, you know—but they're having a hard time reverse-engineering it, I hear."

Harry's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Thank you. I didn't know they were trying to do that. In any case, I gave them instructions—they shouldn't have to reverse engineer anything."

Tonks clapped her hands together. "Oh, just wait till I tell the other guys that the spooks have instructions and _still_ can't figure it out! That's worth a laugh."

Harry smiled indulgently at the other witch's exuberance.

"Forgive our daughter," Andromeda said with a long-suffering expression. "She forgets that as a grown witch and a junior Auror no less she ought to show a little more decorum in her bearing."

"Hey, this is a party, Mum," Tonks said, wrinkling her nose in a carefree way. "Speaking of, are we the only ones here or what?"

"It's in the back garden," Harry grinned. "I'll show you."

They joined the congregation on the lawn and Harry watched as Sirius embraced his cousin as though it had been only a few months since they last saw one another, when in Harry's estimation it had been more like six years. She couldn't remember if the older woman had been at Aunt Diana's funeral or not.

"Andy, you look great," Sirius said. He shook Ted's hand and then turned to their daughter. "Is this little Nymphadora? James told me you had joined the force but I told him you couldn't possibly have finished school yet."

"She finished the homeschooling program a year early," Ted said proudly.

"And that was a few years ago in any case," Andromeda said, smiling slightly. "You're getting old and forgetful, Sirius."

"It's a good thing I had everyone come here to celebrate one last year before I kick the bucket, then," Sirius laughed.

"You just wanted an excuse to eat cake, Uncle Sirius," Harry corrected him.

"Oh, is that why? Seems I am getting forgetful," Sirius said, scratching his head. The Tonks family all three chuckled appreciatively. "Well. Enjoy yourselves, try the lemonade, don't touch the cake—" Another laugh. "—and see if you can find Cissy in this mess, Andy, I know she'd like to see you." Andromeda didn't look at all convinced by that statement, though she nodded politely. "Harry, I think that's everyone, so I officially relieve you of your duties. Go have fun!"

"Happy Birthday, Uncle Sirius," she said, giving him a quick hug.

"Yes, yes, go find some young person to give your father conniptions over," Sirius suggested, patting her head. "Preferably one with a motorcycle."

"I think you're the only wizard in the world with a motorbike," she pointed out.

"Hmm. Well, find one with a tattoo or facial scar and I'll buy them a motorcycle," Sirius decided.

"I'm sure the look on my father's face will be worth it," she deadpanned.

"It always is," Sirius agreed, grinning. He pushed her along into the crowd, and Harry made her way towards the edges where she could observe instead of joining in for a little while. She didn't know most of the people attending, and those she did appeared pleasantly enough occupied for the moment.

Mrs. Weasley was holding Addy and cooing irrepressibly at the one-year-old's every expression. Every so often she gave her husband a pleading look, to which Arthur promptly flushed and looked regretful.

Draco was talking to Neville and Ron, gesturing with his hands in a way that made her suspect he was going over a new idea for a dueling combination. Ron and Neville both looked rapt over the discussion, and Harry longed to go over and see what the details were. She didn't know any of them well enough as Harry to do that, however. After a moment, she shifted her attention elsewhere with a small sigh. Draco would tell Rigel about it anyway, if it was a good enough idea.

James was deep in discussion with a witch Harry vaguely recognized as Amelia Bones, while her niece Susan made small talk with Ginny. As Harry wandered through the crowd, she picked up bits of conversation here and there. Most seemed to be discussing each team's chances in the upcoming Quidditch World Cup. She overheard Lily telling an older wizard in a top hat, "Unfortunately Albus couldn't make it today—I gather he's interviewing for the vacant professorships this afternoon." Soon after she passed a man saying to his neighbor, "Almost didn't come—you know the Ministry's Personnel Department looks down on Dark affiliations, and, well, the _Black_ family…still, Martha insisted, and it _is_ good to see the old boy looking so well..."

She wandered toward the refreshments pavilion for want of else to do, figuring she could at least play hostess a bit and make sure they weren't out of anything that could be refilled from the kitchen. The glasses near the punch bowl had been disturbed from their ordered positions, so she went about straightening them idly, wondering how long this was going to go on. She didn't begrudge Sirius his fun, but with all these people it didn't feel much like his other birthday parties had.

She was inspecting the ice bucket for signs of melting when she saw a pair of shadows moving around to the back of the pavilion. She watched them amusedly for a moment as the shadows moved across the thin, white material. What a bold place for a rendezvous. She was turning to leave the tent when a voice from the other side of the tent wall made her stop in surprise. It was Sirius' voice.

"What is it, Reggie?" He sounded impatient. "I can't just abandon my own party like this."

"Your adoring fans will wait," Regulus said. Both their voices came clearly through the cloth to her ears, and she looked around to gauge if anyone else was near enough to notice, but at the moment she was the only one in the tent. "We need to talk."

"Of course," Sirius said, sounding weary. "I might have known you didn't come just to wish me a happy birthday. What's so important that it drove you to accept my invitation, then?"

"I need to know where you stand, Brother," Regulus said. "People are asking questions that I don't know how to answer. Are you serious about declaring for Neutral?"

"That's what you're on about?" Sirius barked a laugh. "Screw those people, Reggie. I don't give a Knut what they want to know. I'll do as I always have—whatever I wish to."

"You can't be—" Regulus made a frustrated noise that told Harry he'd just barely refrained from saying 'serious.' "Sirius, you're not a child anymore. When you were just the Heir, some flexibility in your views wasn't cause for concern. After father died, people expected your stances to firm up, but of course with Diana's passing allowances were made. Now—"

"I didn't _ask_ for any damn allowances," Sirius growled. "It's nobody's business but _mine_. I'm not going to stand here and make promises to my little brother on how my Wizengamot Seat gets voted. You can tell whoever put you up to this that the Black family headship cannot be purchased or cajoled to a side. I stand with my own feelings and needs, whatever they may be at the moment. Right now, that stance takes me Neutral."

"Because of your son," Regulus said pointedly. "And what happens if your Heir turns Dark? Where will your feelings take you then?"

"I am not discussing this," Sirius scoffed. "Hypotheticals and suppositions—what good are they? Archie can do what he wants with his life. I'll still do what's best for him." Harry noted that Sirius wasn't necessarily promising to support Archie's choices—merely to look out for his best interest. "In any case, you're off your rocker on this one, Reggie. My son is as Light as they come. He wants to be a _Healer_. He cares less for politics than I do, and that is saying something. Even if he did have an interest, what do you really expect from a boy whose best friend is a halfblood? Do you think he's honestly going to support your Party's agenda? It's pure fairytale, Reg."

"You may not know him as well as you think," Regulus said, low. "Children have a way of growing to defy their parents. You should know that better than anyone."

"Don't talk about Archie like you know him," Sirius snapped. "I won't hear any more of this nonsense. You've said your piece. Now either enjoy the party or get the hell out."

She saw the shadow that she surmised belonged to Sirius start to leave, but the other shadow whipped out a hand and caught his arm. "Wait, Sirius. I'm not finished. There are other things to consider."

"Like what?" Sirius said, voice exasperated.

Harry saw a woman approaching the tent from the corner of her eye and promptly pasted a disgusted grimace on her face. When the witch glanced over at her while starting toward the sandwiches, Harry gave her a quick headshake, miming being sick while pointing at the table of food discreetly. The woman wrinkled her nose and nodded a thank you before scurrying back to the party.

Harry drifted toward the back of the tent to pick up the low conversation.

"—'m not kidding, Sirius, it's time to consider taking another partner," Regulus was saying.

" _Never_ ," Sirius snarled.

"You're young yet, Brother," Regulus said firmly. "There's so much time left in your life—do you really want to spend it alone?"

"Pot. Kettle." Sirius sounded incredibly irritated.

Ignoring this, Regulus plowed on. "Things aren't the same as they were when we were young. You can marry your werewolf if you want and have a litter."

Harry had to consciously close her throat to keep from choking. Was Regulus serious?

"That's a ridiculous rumor," Sirius snorted.

"Not so ridiculous," Regulus sneered. "The Sirius Black most people know always had it coming from somewhere, didn't he? The only other people you hang around are the Potters, and the general consensus is that they aren't the type to—"

"Just stop," Sirius groaned. "I'm not getting remarried. You get married if you're so keen to continue the line."

"I can't," Regulus ground out in a low voice. There was a long pause, after which Regulus added bitterly, "You know that I can't."

There was an agonizing silence, in which Sirius cleared his throat uncomfortably. "After all these years? I didn't know. We thought it would fade…"

"Well it didn't," Regulus said bluntly. "Mother certainly knew her Dark Arts. The fact that she regretted it afterwards didn't make it reversible."

"She was so unhappy," Sirius said. His voice sounded full of regret and far away. "Whatever we did, we somehow never could make up for the ones that didn't survive."

"You gave up trying," Regulus said shortly.

"I realized that at some point I had to live my life for me, not for her demons," Sirius said heatedly. "That's what I have to do now. I gave into my own demons for too long. I'm not trying to make a political statement or start throwing the Black family weight around. I just…I want to be there for my son. Wherever he is. Archie is the world to me, Regulus."

"There's nothing wrong with that," Regulus said strongly. "I'm just asking you to think bigger. You are a good father, Sirius. Diana's death was a tragedy, but you've grieved long enough. This is a chance for you to circumvent the difficulties of a witch's second pregnancy. Start fresh. You could have another _child_ , Sirius. One who will mean as much as Archie does."

"I don't…" Sirius trailed off into contemplation.

"Think of it," Regulus urged. "Your son is smart, driven, and powerful from what I hear. With two such children, our legacy would be assured." Harry winced. That was just about the worst thing Regulus could have said just then. He seemed to know it, too, for he attempted to backtrack. "Your house could be happy again, Sirius—"

"My home is fine the way it is," Sirius said flatly. "I'll thank you not to involve my son in your delusions of grandeur in the future. As far as I'm concerned, Archie can take another's name and the Black family can die with us."

"Don't be _selfish_ ," Regulus hissed, "This isn't just about you."

"I'm sorry you can't father your own sons, Reggie, I really am," Sirius said, voice firm. "I can't be your second chance, though. Adopt, if you're so eager. Leave me out of it."

Sirius' shadow walked off and, after a moment of frustrated cursing, Regulus' shadow slunk away as well. Harry was left with quite a lot to think about. That Regulus couldn't sire children explained a lot of things she'd wondered about, such as why he'd never married and had an heir of his own if he was so concerned with the future of the Black family. It also explained why Regulus was so interested in Archie—his nephew was as close to a son as Regulus would ever get. What kind of a mother would curse her own child? She'd heard that Walburga had been clinically insane, and now she had to wonder if she was interpreting Sirius' comment correctly in thinking that part of the reason for the woman's poor mental health was a high number of miscarriages in between her two successful pregnancies. That wasn't the sort of blow most people could shake off easily, if at all.

She walked ponderously from the refreshment tent, not going anywhere in particular. A hand snagged her elbow as she neared the gift table and she swung around to see Ginny gazing impatiently at her.

"I called your name about five times, Harry," Ginny said. "Are you deaf?"

"Sorry," she said, summoning a smile. Sometimes it was difficult for her to get used to being called Harry again after a long stint as Rigel, and vice versa. "How are you, Ginny?"

"Fine, I guess," the redhead said. "I hardly know anyone here—hence going out of my way to chase you across the lawn. You must have been thinking hard about something."

"I suppose I was," Harry agreed. After a moment in which Ginny gazed expectantly at her, Harry said, "Uh…I was just wondering about…Percy."

"Percy." Ginny narrowed her eyes in unimpressed disbelief. "What about him?"

"Well, how is he?" she asked, realizing as she did so that she was actually interested. "Last time I saw him—"

"You mean the only time you've met," Ginny muttered with rolling eyes.

"—he said he wanted to be a barrister." Harry tilted her head in an earnest way. "How's it going? Has he found a law firm to apprentice at yet?"

"Of course," Ginny said, shrugging. "One thing you can count on Percy for is setting the bar ridiculously high. He had a job lined up about a month before he finished school. Works for some hoity-toity firm that does Ministry cases. He's already passed his preliminary qualification exams and no doubt he'll be admitted to the bar the second he grows a big-boy beard."

She tried not to think of Percy in a beard, but it was too late. She snorted indelicately and closed her eyes in simple appreciation for the image Ginny had managed to evoke. "A red beard or a white one?" she asked around a chuckle.

Ginny grinned back cheekily. "Nothing intimidating about a red-bearded barrister. I bet he dyes it grey by the end of the year."

"That's horrible," Harry said, shaking her head.

"You don't know him like I do," Ginny told her. "Anyone else you're curious about? Charlie still works in Romania. Bill runs mysterious errands for the goblins all over the world. The twins have blown up their bedroom three times already since coming home. Ron does a whole lot of nothing all day, as far as I can tell. None of my brothers is in a serious relationship, if that's what you're wondering."

She couldn't stop her nose from wrinkling in surprised distaste. "I wasn't."

Ginny's eyes flashed dangerously. "Why's that? There's quite a variety—don't tell me at least one of them isn't your type."

"I really don't have a…type," she said, mystified at the direction the conversation seemed to be heading.

"So you just look down on Weasley men, is that it?" Ginny's expression was fiercely defensive.

"Of course not," she said carefully. "I don't know you all very well, but I consider you among my friends. It's just that I'm not interested in that sort of thing."

"Oh," Ginny's eyes grew wide with interest. "Are you one of those? With a preference, I mean?"

Harry sighed. "It's the opposite. I'm not interested in anything."

Ginny looked skeptical. "Everyone's interested in _something_."

"I don't have time for romance," she said flatly, quite finished with the conversation.

"If you say so," Ginny shrugged, now appearing bored. "You and Rigel are well-suited after all, it appears."

Harry peered a Ginny suspiciously. That was an odd thing to say. Unless… "You've heard about the…engagement," she surmised.

"Everyone has by now," Ginny said, smirking slightly and looking satisfied about something. "The consensus is that it isn't a very serious arrangement. Since you didn't even bring it up when I grilled you on your inclinations, I'd have to agree. The question is, which of you is the less serious about it?"

"What do you think?" Harry pressed her lips together, irritated that she'd let Ginny corner her in a conversation.

"I think both of you are treating it lightly," Ginny said, studying her. After a moment, she dropped her eyes and shrugged. "It's obvious who benefits more from it, though. I expected you to be defensive of it, in fact, but you seem even less interested than Rigel, and that is saying something. I can't tell if you're oblivious to the favor he's doing you or if you and Rigel are really so close that you can take such treatment for granted."

"The latter," Harry said shortly. "Rigel and I would do anything for one another."

" _Anything_ is a dangerous precondition," Ginny said, eyes cynical. "I don't know anyone who would do absolutely _anything_ for another person."

"Now you do," Harry said, smiling sweetly. "Excuse me, Ginny, but I've just noticed the punch is looking low."

"Better refill it," Ginny agreed, her own smile a shade too disillusioned to be truly innocent.

Why was it that her friends from school were easier to deal with when she didn't have to be herself? Was she always going to feel like this? Like she was seeing two sides of people and they were seeing two sides of her without knowing it? Would she ever be completely one person, or would she forever be straddling the gulf between what she was supposed to know and think and feel and what she actually did?

She was so lost in thought that she misjudged her footing and ran right into someone as they passed the other way. "Sorry," she said automatically, looking up. "Ah, my apologies, Mr. Malfoy."

"Just Draco," her friend grimaced uncomfortably, glancing around as though not sure he wanted to start a conversation with her. "And it was my own fault. I lost track of my surroundings."

"I know the feeling," she said. They stood for a moment in awkward silence until she added. "Enjoying the party?"

"Yes," he said, slight relief in his grey eyes. He always hated to be at a loss for something to say. "It's very relaxed."

"Very Sirius, you mean," she offered.

"Just so." His lips relented somewhat into an amused quirk. "My mother told me many stories of her cousin Sirius when I was young. Somehow, I don't think she exaggerated any of them."

"If anything, she probably downplayed some of them in deference to general standards of credibility," Harry guessed. "There are a few I wouldn't believe myself if I hadn't been there."

"Like what?" A mischievous glint crept into Draco's eyes. "Mother doesn't have any recent tales."

"I'm not sure I should tell you…" she teased. "It wouldn't do to defame the birthday boy at his own party."

"I won't tell if you don't," Draco said seriously.

She bowed her head in good humor. "Very well, but you must promise to believe everything I say, no matter how outlandish."

Draco chuckled a bit, and she noticed the sound was lower than she'd expected. She had just seen him on the train ride home. Had she been so distracted by her own problems lately that she hadn't noticed her friend getting older? "Very well, I so promise," he said, clearly humoring her.

She widened her eyes and lowered her voice, ready to give the story all the drama and style it deserved. "It was a dark and stormy night. Lightning splintered across the sky and thunder cackled with threatening promise in its wake. All sensible witches and wizards were safe in their homes. Save one." Draco began to smile appreciatively, so she pressed on. "The wizard set out on this very lawn we're standing in to challenge the sky—his mission: to capture a bolt of lightning from the storm."

"That's ridiculous." Draco pursed his lips. "Not even Sirius Black is that foolish."

"Who says it was Sirius?" Harry smirked. "No, the wizard in question was considerably younger and more idiotic than my uncle. It was Archie."

" _Rigel_ tried to catch a lightning bolt?" Draco looked completely incredulous. "Why?"

Harry shrugged. "At the time, he and I had the old Thunderbolt broom models, and Ar— _Rigel_ got it into his seven-year-old mind that lightning was what made it go fast. He wanted to make it go faster."

"Oh, no," Draco groaned. "Of all the foolishness…wasn't anyone watching him?"

"I was," Harry said, grinning. "Saw the whole thing. It was my idea to attach a coat hanger to the end of handle." Draco's face was entirely horrified. "Our parents thought we were sleeping in my room, but we used the brooms to fly down from the window instead. Don't worry—we were very careful. Wore rubber gloves and everything."

"I'm sure it was all very scientific," Draco scoffed.

"Oh, yes." Harry nodded seriously. "We arranged the broom with the handle toward the sky, propped up by branches we stuck in the mud. It took ages for the storm to really hit its peak. We almost gave up waiting, and I headed toward the neighbor's garden to see if I could find another piece of metal to add to our configuration, but then a huge crack rang out and the sky seemed to split open in a flash of light and heat. When my vision cleared, Rigel was unconscious in the grass about twenty feet from where he'd been standing and the broom was blackened and twisted, the sticks around it on fire. Turns out when you stand near a lightning strike rubber gloves don't stop the peripheral electricity from running up through your feet."

Draco's eyes were completely round. "What…what did you do?"

"I took down the other broom right quick so they didn't both get fried," Harry said, blinking innocently.

He gaped at her for a moment before his eyes narrowed. "You're joking."

She smiled. "Yes I am. I ran over and checked on Rigel, of course. He was breathing, but he didn't move when I shook him. His hair was all standing on end and he just stared up at the sky unblinking while I called his name. Finally he turned his head to me and said, 'Did we catch it?'"

"Idiot," Draco breathed, lips quirking a bit fondly. "I don't understand how this story has to do with Lord Black, though."

"I'm building up to it," Harry promised. "Once I was certain my cousin hadn't been fried completely, I ran inside to wake my parents. There was subsequently much panicking and Diana and Sirius were called over and we all wound up at St. Mungo's around two in the morning. They patched him up quick enough, but he had to stay overnight in the children's ward for monitoring. Rigel grumbled and complained about how unfair it was and despite our family's rather stringent admonitions remained quite unrepentant about the whole episode. Sirius got so fed up with his cavalier attitude that he decided to teach his son a lesson in empathy."

"I'm sure that went over well," Draco said, grimacing. "Rigel hates being patronized."

"He was just a kid back then," Harry reminded him. "And quite gullible, actually."

"I can't picture it," Draco said, clearly doutful.

"People change a lot," Harry said dismissively. "Anyway, Sirius waits until the next morning, when Archie is taken from his bed in the general ward over to an examination room so a Mediwizard can check him one last time before discharging him. The examination rooms are really just curtained off areas that separate the patient from the rest of the children's ward. There are a series of them in a row at the far end of the ward, toward the windows. Sirius is surprisingly handy at weather charms, in case you didn't know, so he went to the window and summoned a very localized storm."

"Oh, no," Draco muttered, looking like someone who was watching a brand new broom about to crash into the Whomping Willow.

"Oh, yes," Harry said, grinning. "Complete with little flashes of lightning and thunder and everything. Sirius then positioned himself next to the curtain behind which Archie was being examined and said in a loud voice, 'Will you look at that storm rolling in! The lightning is so close!' He then summoned a bright light that illuminated his silhouette against the curtains and proceeded to scream dramatically while pretending to twitch and fall to the ground, apparently electrocuted into unconsciousness. Immediately a high-pitched scream of horror came from behind the curtain and Sirius considered his plan a flat success."

"That's a bit dark," Draco said, looking disturbed.

"The point was to make Rigel feel what Sirius had felt when James summoned him to our house and he saw his son twitching uncontrollably with burns on both feet," Harry said. "You have to remember that Rigel appeared to feel no regret at all for what we'd done, which made Sirius understandably concerned that unless he realized the extent of his actions he might do something even more reckless next time."

"I can see his intention, but I have to say Rigel's track record doesn't speak to its effectiveness," Draco said wryly.

"That's because Rigel wasn't even in the examination room while Sirius was giving his best impression of a human light bulb," Harry said, smirking. "He had slipped out to go to the bathroom five minutes earlier when Sirius was distracting the Mediwizard by sending him to fetch his son some water."

"Then…who screamed?" Draco asked, frowning.

"Well, it turns out Sirius got a bit confused about which curtain Rigel was supposed to be behind," Harry said sadly. "When he jumped to his feet and swept the curtain aside with smug satisfaction he was confronted not with a newly repentant son but with a group of eight little girls all there to receive their pre-schooling immunizations. Three of them were crying openly and the others all began screaming again at the sight of him, convinced he was now a ghost."

Draco groaned in amused disbelief. "That's terrible."

"It was," Harry agreed. "They all started panicking and throwing things at him, including a water goblet that caught him across the face and blackened his eye. A Mediwizard for the ward came charging in and found Sirius at the mercy of eight tiny witches who were all hysterically upset. It took Sirius ten minutes to explain himself to the Healer's satisfaction and calm the little girls down, and by then Rigel was back from the bathroom and had a good laugh at his father's expense. Then the girls' schoolteacher, who had been in the waiting room with the rest of my family came in to see what was taking so long and Sirius had to explain all over again. Then one of the smallest girls tugged on Sirius' sleeve and told him that he made her cry and he had to make it up to her. He asked how he could earn her forgiveness and she told him, very seriously, that she wanted one of the gold filigreed buttons on his overcoat."

Draco smiled widely. "Not the ones from Twilfitt and Tattings? Those cost a pretty penny."

"They are apparently very shiny, as well," Harry said. "As before he knew it, all the girls were demanding buttons. He agreed, of course, feeling terrible for having frightened them accidentally. When he ran out of buttons on his coat, he was obliged to offer the ones on his shirt as well and even the golden clasp that was holding his hair back. When he finally came out into the waiting room he looked like a goose that had been plucked for dinner and then released after the cook changed his mind. He was clasping his clothes together with his bare hands and his disheveled hair hung about his rather shell-shocked expression as he stumbled toward the exit miserably. The Head Healer of the children's ward was searing his ears with admonishments and Rigel was just behind him, laughing and laughing all the way to the Floo."

Draco shook his head in disbelief. "And they still let him volunteer at the children's ward after _that_?"

"Oh that was when he started volunteering," Harry told him. "He felt so guilty about the whole thing that he arranged it with the Head Healer as a sort of penance. Later he decided he enjoyed it too much to ever quit."

"Well if that's an average anecdote from your childhood I suppose I can see where Rigel gets some of his skewed notions of normalcy," Draco admitted, laughing softly. "Thank you for sharing that."

"Thanks for listening—I know other people's stories are never as interesting as they seem to the person recalling them." Harry smiled.

"You shouldn't be self-deprecating like that," Draco said, frowning slightly. "It was an amusing story, and making it seem otherwise won't serve you well in the long run."

Harry blinked, tilting her head slightly. "Why do you say that?"

Draco took a moment to respond, looking at her oddly. "You look so much like Rigel when you do that. It's eerie how alike you two are."

"We grew up together," Harry said shortly. "What did you mean?"

"Just that if you want to succeed in this type of social environment you need to show confidence and strength, not humility. It makes you seem as though you either don't know your own worth or you're fishing for complements," Draco said.

She thought about that for a moment, frowning. "Most people would consider it a polite deflection of an implied compliment, wouldn't they?"

"Perhaps if you were someone else," Draco said, looking a little apologetic. "I'm not trying to criticize you—it's honest advice," he added, concern in his gaze. He probably feared she would take his comments the wrong way and perhaps complain to Rigel that he was unkind to her.

"I understand," she said, nodding slowly. "As a halfblood speaking to a pureblood I shouldn't overtly undervalue myself because others will do it anyway, so it only makes it seem like I agree with their assessment and am admitting that I don't belong here."

Draco looked taken aback, as though he hadn't expected her to grasp his point so quickly or repeat it so bluntly. "Forgive me," he said, "for bringing it up like this. I shouldn't have ruined the mood. It is a party."

"I'm glad you did," Harry said honestly. "I never resent advice, especially when it's given kindly. I'm not…" she trailed off, picking through words with care, " _unaware_ of the position I'm in. Rigel means a lot to me, but he occupies with ease a world that I will have to work hard to be accepted in. If I may be as blunt, I truly appreciate your civility. Others of your station have not been so courteous. Even if you are only being nice to me for Rigel's sake, I'm still grateful, and I think it speaks well of you as a wizard."

Draco looked supremely uncomfortable. "I find your company perfectly amiable, Miss Potter. That Rigel is so close to you just makes it all the more important for us to find ways to get along."

She would bet good Galleons that Pansy had put that idea into Draco's head. It smacked of her friend's social insight and long-term thinking. She didn't know how she felt about the idea. On the one hand, she was acutely aware that she would one day lose Draco and Pansy's friendship as Rigel. It would mean so much if she was able to continue that friendship as Harry, but on the other hand…it seemed an unlikely prospect. How could she have a close relationship with her best friends without eventually revealing something about the ruse? She knew too well that her guard was much lower around them. Eventually she would make a reference she shouldn't. It was too risky, and yet…she wanted this. Wanted to be legitimately included into their lives as Harry.

"I suppose we should," she said eventually. She knew it was less than overtly welcoming, but she wasn't sure yet what the best course of action would be. She would write to Archie and ask his opinion before she attempted to get any closer to Draco as Harry.

If Draco was curious as her sudden reticence, he didn't show it. Instead he gave her a polite nod and said, "I look forward to speaking with you again sometime, then, Miss Potter."

"Just Harry," she said.

"Harry," he repeated, looking searchingly at her for a moment. "How is he?"

She knew exactly what he was asking. The last he'd seen of Rigel hadn't been an advertisement for a healthy psyche. "He's…getting better," she said honestly. She could not help the shadow that drifted across her face as she reflected on the progress she'd made. "He's going to be fine. The time away from everything will do him good, I think. When he returns, he'll be the Rigel you know."

"He should be with his family and friends right now, not off in the middle of nowhere," Draco said, scowling unhappily.

"You know he likes to deal with things alone," she said quietly.

Draco pressed his lips together and nodded sharply. "You're right of course, Miss Potter. Excuse me." Then he left, weaving his way through the crowd toward where Narcissa was standing somewhat stiffly beside her sister.

"Just Harry," she muttered after him half-heartedly. She had never been more aware that she was not 'just Harry.' She was Heiress Potter. She was Harry the Lower Alley Potions Brewer. She was Rigel Black. She was highborn, lowborn, pureblood, halfblood, powerful, average, mysterious, and unassuming. She was thirteen. She was fifteen. She was fractured and whole. She was a child and a criminal, a lady and a liar. She was afraid that by the time everything was over she wouldn't be anything anymore. Just a collection of faces that hid a hollow void where there should be something real and solid and _her_.

She retreated to the outskirts of the party, then slipped into the kitchen when Sirius began opening his gifts with great fanfare. She busied herself washing up, but knew that anyone who came in would not be fooled by her slow scrubbing. As the party wound down, she pasted a friendly smile back onto her face and thanked people for coming when they glanced in her direction as they traipsed through to the Floo.

When Lily came in after the guests had departed and took over the cleanup, Harry bid Sirius one more happy birthday before changing out of her party clothes and grabbing her cloak. She needed to cheer up before her family wondered about her odd morose mood, and she could only think of one way to do that.

"I'm making a run to Diagon," she called to her parents on her way out. "Won't be too long."

"Can't it wait?" James called back.

"No," she said, attempting to sound apologetic. "Sorry, but I'm completely out of beetle legs."

"Merlin forbid," she heard her father snort as she grabbed for the Floo powder. It was nearly gone, even with their having bought extra for the party.

"I'll get more Floo powder while I'm out," she said loudly.

"Thank you!" Lily's words were the last thing she heard as she spun away to the place she had come to think of as a second home.

It was nearing dinnertime, and the more popular restaurants in Diagon Alley had begun setting up outside tables that edged foot traffic in the alley closer toward the middle of the street. She made such slow progress getting through the summer evening crowds that she wasn't surprised to find Leo waiting for her by the time she'd reached the mouth of Knockturn Alley. She slowed her impatient steps to a stop a few feet from him, taking in his ever-tanned skin and sleeveless summer tunic. His bright, hazel eyes smiled at her fondly as he uncrossed his arms and stepped in for a hug.

"It's about time, lass," he said into her hair.

She pulled away after a brief moment and scowled lightly to cover an unexplained embarrassment. "I've only been home from school a few days," she reminded him. "I'm not obliged to come down here and get my boots dirty at the very first opportunity."

"You did anyway, though," he guessed, grinning crookedly down at her. She had to frown, wondering when he was going to stop growing and let her catch up. She'd been so sure that her recent height addition was going to give her an advantage in their next duel. He was, what, eighteen now? When did boys stop growing, anyway?

"I had nothing better to do tonight," she huffed, putting her hands in her pocket. "How did your lookouts recognize me, anyway? I've changed a lot since they last saw me."

"You look the same to me," he said, eyes tracing her features in quick flicks. "My ears recognize your boots, anyway."

"My boots?" She frowned down at them. They were an ordinary pair of boots, though she supposed she did always wear the same ones.

Leo nodded once. "You take care not to attract attention with your clothes—which in itself attracts attention, by the way—but your boots are top-quality. That, and you're the only black-haired, green-eyed kid who comes to Diagon Alley alone and doesn't stop to look at any of the stores as you walk. Even when you've been gone awhile, you walk like you belong down here, and that's easy to spot out."

She considered that for a moment, then shrugged. "Well, tell your ears that I'll be buying a new pair of boots soon; the Sizing Charms are starting to wear thin on this pair."

"They'll relish the additional challenge," Leo assured her.

She rolled her eyes and began walking toward Kyprioth Court. "How are things lately? The Aurors ought to have stopped raiding now that they've got what they were looking for, right?"

"Apparently," Leo said, measuring his steps beside her. "They've gone back to just inspecting known Dark Arts dealers like Borgin and Burkes again. Things are good here. They usually are in the summer. More tourists in Diagon with kids off of school, so businesses do well, which means goodwill taxes can be collected. It also means a booming business for my pickpockets, but that's neither here nor there."

"I hope you're recruiting faster runners," she said, remembering with amusement the time a young urchin had tried to relieve her of a money purse.

Leo grinned sidelong at her. "I heard you chased one of my boys all the way to the deep alleys once. He was very traumatized by the experience, you know. Says you did some wandless voodoo on him and scolded him like his mother to boot."

Harry felt her ears turn red. "I didn't scold him. I just told him to pick someone fatter to steal from next time."

Leo laughed aloud. "I would have given the lad _my_ Galleons to see that. If you're interested, I think the kid took your advice. Jack is one of our top collectors, these days."

"How nice," she said, not sure if she should feel pleased or not that a boy his age was making a decent living as a thief. She supposed it was better than imagining the boy on the street somewhere, but… "Leo, what do children in the lower alleys do besides run errands for the Court? I know you feed and house the orphans, but are they schooled?"

"Of course," Leo said, looking surprised at the question. "We have a couple different schoolmasters who float in and out of the Court. There's always someone around to give lessons to those who'll sit still for them. It's not anything fancy, of course; there's no money to send 'em to Hogwarts and the like, even for the few who could prove themselves pureblooded. Most are mixed bloods or don't know who their parents were, and there's certainly not enough gold to send them abroad. We do what we can, though, to get training and certificates for the older ones who want to leave the alleys to do other things. Most of them stay on with the Court, or at least in the alleys, and no one around here gives a whit where you learned to count anyway."

She nodded silently, soaking in this new information. There was always so much she didn't know about the world. "Well, I'm free this summer. If anyone seems interesting in potions brewing, send them my way, will you? At the very least I can teach them how to recognize good potions from bad. You'd be surprised how few grown wizards can tell if something in their potions kit has spoiled."

"That'd be great," Leo said, voice earnest. "Most of the teachers we get specialize in basic spellwork. My mum gives an impromptu lesson every now and then at the Phoenix, but it's usually on how to detect and cure poisons."

The Dancing Phoenix was just coming into sight ahead, and Harry couldn't help the small sigh that escaped her at its cheerfully lit windows and open door, which spilled music and laughter into the court around it. "I missed this place," she admitted. "It's been a long spring."

"It missed you, too," Leo said, bowing her facetiously through the doorway. "And spring is long behind us now."

"Yes, it is," she agreed quietly, soaking in the atmosphere for a long moment before following Leo to the center table where Merek, Aled, Rispah, Solom, and Krait were all sitting. "Summer is come at last."

Mugs were raised around the table at her arrival, and a discordant sort of shuffling ensued to make room for her between Leo and Krait on one side, with Marek, Aled, and Rispah on the other and Solom pulling up a stool on the end closest to the dormant fireplace. "There's my long-lost brewer," Krait said, slapping her on the shoulder happily. "First you send me so many potions I'm overstocked and then you drop off the map for two months! We need to have a serious chat about quantity control, Harry."

"I had a time-management issue this last term," Harry said, for the first time able to smile slightly even as she alluded peripherally to the events that still haunted her. "It'll be better this summer."

"Not doing anything with the Guild this year?" Aled asked curiously.

She shook her head. "I'll do some experimenting on my own, but I'll still have loads of free time."

"Not as much as you think," Leo said ominously, a slow grin taking over his face. "Don't you remember what I told you in our letters?"

She thought back, but after so many time-turned hours it was like trying to remember something that had happened years ago instead of months. Finally, a vague recollection came to her. "Something about a…tournament?"

Rispah began laughing. "I don't think Harry reads your letters as many times as you read his, Cousin."

"That's because I send him more letters than he sends me," Leo grumbled. "Harry is a terrible pen pal."

"Guilty," she said, nodding sadly. "So what gem did I miss in the treasure trove of your correspondence, Leo?"

"The Court is holding a freedueling tournament," Marek put in excitedly. "The first in three years. People are going to come from all over to compete."

"Freedueling is illegal," she felt compelled to point out. "How will you even advertise it without the Aurors shutting it down and fining you?" The others laughed, as she knew they would, but she was genuinely interested in how they planned to spread the word.

"Word of mouth," Aled said, shrugging. "Everyone knows someone who knows someone who wants to test his mettle."

"Or her," Rispah put in, eyeing Harry sidelong.

"That's right, it's open to all participants regardless of nationality, gender, or species," Leo said, also smirking in Harry's direction.

"I'll look forward to watching it," she said, frowning back at him suspiciously.

"I signed you up," Leo said bluntly, a cheerful smile on his face. "The entrance fee was a Sickle. You can pay me back at your leisure."

Her eyes narrowed dangerously at him. She'd pay him back all right. "You can get your money refunded when you withdraw my name from the list."

"No-can-do," Solom said, smiling into his drink. "The brackets have already been drawn up."

Harry gaped at them. It was a conspiracy. "I can't compete. I'm not even qualified."

"You passed the preliminaries," Marek said innocently. "Lots of people didn't do that much. I'd say you're plenty qualified."

"What preliminaries?" she demanded.

"Oh, you have to beat a member of the organizing committee in a friendly duel to earn a spot in the real competition," Rispah said, inspecting her nails casually. "Just to keep out the kids who could get hurt in a real fight."

"Well I didn't do that," Harry said, frowning. "It's not fair if you just put my name in because you know me."

"You beat Aled in a practice duel over winter break, did you not?" Leo reminded her, leaning one elbow on the table cajolingly. "Turns out he's part of the organizing committee, so it counts."

"He went easy on me that day," Harry said, exasperated.

"I never," Aled snorted. "You're a tricky devil, that's all."

"Not as tricky as you lot," she complained.

"If you were, we'd have to hire you," Rispah said, chuckling. "You're already dangerously savvy for one not in the Court of Rogues. You'll do fine in the tourney."

"When is it?" she groaned. It better not be something that was going to take up her whole summer.

"Just before your birthday," Leo said, smiling in satisfaction. "Plenty of time to prepare."

She sighed into the glass of milk that one of the table boys had brought over without her asking. She supposed it would be as good a reason as any to ask Leo for extra lessons in hand-to-hand combat. She had been planning on taking her training more seriously anyway this summer. She would never be caught in a helpless position again. "All right," she said at last. "But you're training me for this so I don't make a fool of myself," she added with a stern look.

"Wonderful," Leo said, clapping his hands together. "Come to the alleys tomorrow and I'll teach you how to Apparate."

"What?" She stared at him. "I'm not seventeen."

They laughed again. Marek leaned forward and said, "Everyone else will be Apparating in the tournament. If you can't, they'll only take advantage of that."

She supposed it made sense that freedueling didn't have rules about Apparating during the duel if it didn't have rules about weapons or potions being used. Still… "My dad's an Auror, remember," she muttered in aside to Leo. "This probably isn't a good idea."

"And my dad's an Aldermaster." Leo shrugged. "But they aren't the ones participating. Your parents will never know."

"Unless I die in it." She wasn't sure what made her say such a pessimistic thing, but she didn't take it back. It was a legitimate concern, after all.

"I won't let anything happen to you," Leo said seriously. He leaned in a bit closer and added, "You don't have to, Harry. We're not really going to force you to compete. Think about it, though. You've been training under me for almost a years now. Don't you want to see what you can really do? Against real opponents? Don't tell me you aren't tired of always losing to me."

Harry elbowed him for his conceit, but had to admit he was right. It would be interesting to test her skills for real. Dueling club at Hogwarts lacked a certain amount of earnestness, not to mention it was restricted to magical means of contestation only. Then she thought of something else. "Won't I be losing to you anyway, if you're in the tournament?"

Leo laughed, "I hope so. I have to win if I want to keep my crown, after all."

"The prize is the Rogue?" she said, alarmed.

"Of course not," Leo laughed. "Not everyone wants the job, I assure you. If I don't come out on top, though, it will lead to at least a few people questioning whether I've gone soft. They'll wonder if I can really protect the Court like I'm supposed to. It's bad enough I'm the youngest Rogue they've had in several generations. I have to make the best showing possible. The tournament is a way to reassure people as much as to cement my authority and entertain them. Not to mention the gold it'll bring in from ticket sales and vendors…"

He trailed off, clearly making happy calculations in his head, and Harry just gazed at him, wondering how someone so young could take on the responsibility of so many people willingly. She could barely take care of herself some days.

"So what is the prize?" she asked the table at large, raising her voice again to include everyone.

"Gold," Krait grunted.

"Twenty whole Galleons," Marek added, smiling dreamily. "And that's just the runner-up! The winner gets thirty, but everyone knows it'll be Leo and just go back to the Court."

"Nothing is certain," Leo said modestly. There was a glint of competitive anticipation in his eyes that she recognized from Draco's before a Quidditch game, however. What was it with boys and proving their own superiority through sport? As soon as she thought it, she flushed somewhat guiltily. She couldn't deny the fire of competition flooded her own veins on the occasions she was faced with a real challenge. Hadn't she enjoyed putting the boys in their places during the Guild internship last summer? Who was she to think the tournament foolish?

At that moment, someone came up and tapped Leo on the shoulder with a low, "Highness." Leo's face grew serious and he nodded to them all before standing and excusing himself to hear whatever it was in private.

Rispah leaned over from across the table and said, "It's good to have you back, Harry. Leo's been under a lot of pressure this year and you just being here calms him down right enough."

"I don't do anything," she protested, surprised at the remark. "If anything I take time away from what he could spend on other things."

"Don't underestimate what your friendship means to Leo," Rispah said seriously. "Leo's never had a friend from outside of these alleys. His relationship with all his closest mates changed irrevocably when he won the Kingship. He became withdrawn, formal with his people; he has to be, to be taken seriously at his age. It wears on him at times, though. He needs someone he can spend time with irresponsibly. It makes him happy, and a happy King means a happy Rogue. Everyone here knows that—it's why our folk look after you the way they do."

"Look after me?" she repeated, confused.

"Did you think one lazy pickpocket attempt every two years was the average for people who walk at will through the lower alleys?" Rispah raised her eyebrows. "Leo's ears have intercepted half a dozen attempts on your person at least—and that's just that I know of."

Harry's eyes went wide. "Well, I feel sheepish. And much less confident. I didn't notice anything," she said, disturbed.

"We didn't let you," Rispah said, patting her messy hair fondly. "Don't look so stricken; your naïve confidence is part of your charm."

She grimaced. "Thanks." She vowed to pay more attention to her surroundings. She'd known Leo's little runners kept an eye on her progress through the alleys, but she had no idea they'd been so industrious in keeping negative attention away from her—or that their efforts were so necessary.

Krait cleared his throat from beside her and, when Harry looked over, he said, "I heard you've had some success with your potions experiments, young Harry."

"I told you about it last summer," she said, slightly confused about why he was bringing it up now.

"You told me you'd invented a new way of brewing," Krait corrected her with a scowl. "You didn't tell me you invented a whole new bloody potion. Horace Burke has been breathing down the door of every apothecary in London trying to find someone who can replicate a recipe he somehow finagled from the Guild's Department of Research and Development. He's mad to find a brewer who can make the potion work, so I tell him if he can get a copy to me, I'm sure my star brewer can attempt it. When I got it, wasn't I surprised to see my own brewer's name in the bloody title?"

She frowned in alarm at Krait, who didn't appear to notice that he'd told anyone with a little detective ability in earshot that she was Harry Potter. She looked suspiciously at his tankard, wondering how many drinks he'd had that night. "I didn't know Burke was so interested in the potion. The recipe was published in the Guild's newsletter last year."

"Well, no one can recreate it," Krait said flatly. "And Horace Burke is going to pay through the nose to be able to supply it to his customers before it gets mass produced."

"That's…" She shook her head to clear it. "I'm not sure if I'm allowed to sell it yet. The Department of Mysteries has been studying it all year, but they haven't gotten back to me about their findings, if any. Although…they are starting to use it at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, so I guess they must have decided it was safe."

Her father had in fact already commissioned several dozen of them directly from her just before the school term ended. They were the first potions she was able to bring herself to brew without wanting to be sick. When Archie first passed on the letter, Harry had to laugh at how excited James was in making the order. He'd told her gleefully that she'd even get paid for them from department funds, and mentioned it might be a good idea for her to open her own Gringotts account with the profits. He had no way of knowing that she'd been financially capable for quite some time. It was nice to have his pride, though. Finally even he had to admit her studies were good for something.

"If the Ministry is using it in their departments they can't stop anyone else selling it," Krait said, smirking. "Come on, what do you say? Lets get rich, Harry."

She shook her head a bit in amusement. "I'll make Burke as many as he wants. You, too, Krait. Don't charge too much for them, though. I want everyone to have access to it."

"What's it do?" Marek finally piped up, looking insanely curious.

"It's like a portable ward," Harry said, fumbling to explain in a way someone not familiar with the intricacies of brewing techniques would understand. "You pour it around you or whatever you're protecting and it sets up a barrier. Only weaker than a real ward, obviously. Still, it holds up pretty well against werewolves. Dragons, too, actually. It lasts about twelve hours, unless the antidote potion is used."

"There's an antidote potion?" Krait looked ecstatic. "Burke doesn't even know about that one. I'm gonna charge him double for the set."

"That sounds impressive," Rispah said interestedly. "How do you know it holds up against such creatures, though?"

She blanched a bit before she caught herself. Affecting a casual expression that she knew didn't fool any of the players at the table, she attempted to brush off the question. "Well, there's a lot involved in the experimental process—"

"What did you do, Harry?" Came a low voice behind her. She turned to see Leo standing over her shoulder with a hand on his hip. "Don't tell me you tested those uses yourself."

She opened her mouth to lie, but stopped when she saw the sharp intuition in his eyes. Because of her unprepared acting, he already knew the answer. "I've had an interesting year," she muttered defensively.

He looked at her long and searchingly before offering her a hand. "Tell me about it."

She shook her head quickly. "No, that's okay. It's really not the sort of thing you'd want to hear."

Suddenly everyone else at the table had something very important they had to get to. Krait and Solom retreated into the kitchen while Rispah excused herself to join a group of ladies at another table and Marek challenged Aled to a wrestling match in the courtyard. Harry stood and drained her milk resignedly. She set the cup down and climbed out from the bench, ignoring Leo's outstretched hand a bit churlishly.

He walked her outside, and Harry glanced up at the sky clumsily. "Wow, it's getting late. I ought to head back. I told my parents I wouldn't be long."

"Tell them you ran into an old friend," Leo said easily, leaning back against the side of the Dancing Phoenix with a patient expression.

"That will greatly reassure my father," she muttered, turning to lame humor in her unwillingness to have the conversation Leo seemed to be waiting for.

They stood in silence for a few moments, until Harry relented and came to lean on the wall beside her friend. She could see him tilt his head down at her from the corner of her eyes. She didn't meet his gaze, preferring to look straight ahead at the sparsely populated alley. "You look tired," Leo said after a lengthy pause. "Like you aren't sleeping."

"I sleep," she said.

"Not the full night, though, I'd wager," Leo mused. "There's a strangeness in you, lass. I thought it was just your new looks, at first, but my magic's been telling me something is off all evening. You've changed in some way, somewhere below the surface."

"I'm the same—"

"You look around more, too. Wary-like. You noticed me in the shadows of Knockturn Alley much sooner than I expected you to. When we approached the Phoenix you looked like someone come home after years in the wide world, only you also took note of every face and body in the room before you came to sit." Leo turned his gaze up to the heavens and he blew out a long breath. "I wish you'd tell me what happened to you in the last couple months. You sounded busy in early spring, but fine. Then your letters just stopped coming. I thought you were busy with exams, but it was something else, wasn't it?"

She shook her head slowly, an ache from the feelings she was holding back taking root in her temples. She forced her expression to relax and said, "Nothing happened. You're imagining things."

"So I imagined your eyes going dark and troubled just before you asked for extra self-defense training?" Leo said softly.

"You must have," she whispered.

"Harry—"

"I don't want to talk about my year," she said firmly, looking over at him at last. "I'd like to put all of it behind me, in fact. I like being with you all in the alleys because nothing here reminds me of that. Okay?"

Leo's face said plainly that he didn't find it okay, but her friend was getting better at respecting her boundaries, apparently. He smiled a bit sadly at her and said, "Whatever you want. Let me walk you back to Diagon?"

"Sure," she said, standing straight once more. "Oh, I have to get some Floo powder! I told my parents I would pick some up."

"The shop might be closed by now," Leo said doubtfully, glancing up at the sun. "Why don't we Floo to your place on Dogwood real quick and you can bring home whatever you have stored there? You can buy more tomorrow to replace it."

"No, that's okay," she said quickly. "I'll just tell them the shop was out." She had no idea whether Mrs. Flint was still using her apartment or not, but Flint had intimated that he planned on letting her stay where she was settled until he had a stable enough position to support them both, so she assumed the woman was still living there for the time being.

Leo gave her a measuring look. "More secrets, Harry? These are my alleys, you know. I could find out if I really wanted to."

"Or you could respect my privacy," she said breezily. She started down the street at a quick pace, calling over her shoulder, "Coming?"

"One of these days…" Leo threatened playfully.

"Keep telling yourself that." Harry smirked. "I know you value our friendship too much to pry."

"I do," he agreed, suddenly serious again. "But, Harry, you can talk to me if you need to. About anything. I won't judge anything you're mixed up in, and I won't tell anyone your secrets."

"I know you wouldn't," Harry said, smiling wanly. "I'm not protecting myself from you, Leo." It was quite the other way around. She couldn't mix Leo up in her crimes by making him an accomplice. For all that he flouted the law down here in his kingdom, she was committing crimes under the noses of extremely powerful people who would not hesitate to round up everyone she'd ever met for questioning if her lies were ever discovered. Leo could not afford to fail a Veritaserum test on her behalf. Too many people depended on him.

"I wish I could protect you from whatever it is that's got you so scared," Leo said, clenching and unclenching one hand frustratedly as they walked. "I hate seeing you unhappy."

"I'm not unhappy," she said, smiling at him to prove it. "In fact, this is the best I've felt since coming home. Thanks for that, Leo."

"Anytime, lass," Leo said, falling back into his usual diffidently relaxed gait after a moment. "You come down this way as often as you need to—we'll be here."

He would, she knew, and he might never know how much that meant to her, having a place where she could be as close to herself as she knew how. The further her ruse carried her from the person her family expected her to be, the stranger she felt falling back into old patterns of behavior when she was at home. Here people didn't care what her name was or what her future held. The only things that mattered were her wits and her skills and, she admitted upon reflection, her friendship with Leo. She hoped Rispah was right, and she was as good an influence on Leo as he was on her.

She couldn't remember the last time she was considered a good influence on anyone, in fact, and some part of her found it a nice feeling. At the least, it made her feel less beholden to the unwavering support and generosity he'd shown her for the past two years.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

The good feeling from the alleys followed her home and into her dreams that night. She woke feeling refreshed, and thinking that she should make it a point to do something good for others this summer, since she had a bounty of free time before her. Offering to give a couple of classes on potions for the alley kids was a good start, but there had to be other ways her skills and knowledge in potions could be put to a greater use. She would make it her mission that summer to find ways to give back to the community at large.

First, though, she had to get Krait a batch of the Protective Potions, if only to give him something to gleefully hold over Burke's head for a few weeks. She would need to ensure Krait didn't tell Burke that his brewer was the potion's inventor, however. Burke had contacts all over the place, and she didn't need anyone outside of Krait, Archie, Leo, his parents, and Rispah knowing that Harriett Potter worked for a shady apothecary down Knockturn Alley in her spare time.

The potions were a cinch to make after so much practice. They used a lot of magic, but she found that she had plenty to spare these days. By the third cauldron full, she had gotten so used to the large expenditures of magic that she didn't even notice it anymore.

She did notice when a piercing headache so diverted her concentration that she lost count of how many stirs she'd given since reducing the heat. The pain bloomed deeper, to near-debilitating levels, but she was well acquainted with pain now and didn't let it consume her. She gritted her teeth and forced her brain into focusing on setting up a stasis spell over her cauldron. That done, she groped her way toward a stool and took several deep breaths as she attempted to identify a cause.

The pain in her head didn't seem to emanate from any one point. It wasn't the ache at the base of her skull that let her know when she'd been hunched over a cauldron too long, nor the throbbing behind her temples she sometimes got from squinting at recipes for hours in the near dark. This pain pulsed through her entire head like a knife, and as she concentrated on it she began to feel a separate sensation, like a tug on her consciousness, underneath the discomfort.

Anger replaced her confusion, and she moved from the stool to sit against a nearby wall while she plunged her consciousness backwards from reality into the recesses of her mind.

She opened the eyes of her avatar to find herself completely submerged in water and very nearly closed them again in aggravation. Why did everything have to be so difficult? She looked around in what seemed like slow motion, her movements restricted by the press of water all around her. Visibility was remarkably good, despite the ocean that stretched in every direction, and there was an unnatural amount of light bending through the water that gave the scene away as magically created.

She was about a hundred feet above some sort of golden, underwater city. The metal that composed its spires and archways glittered beneath her and she started swimming toward it. She would bet all her cauldrons that the nuisance responsible for her headache was lounging on a throne somewhere in the middle of all the grandeur.

When she approached the submerged castle, she found it guarded at every entrance by selkie-like creatures that brandished spears menacingly at her as she swam near.

"It's my mind," she snapped at them in a stream of bubbles, waving away their silent challenge with an impatient hand. They let her pass, or rather she swam straight past them with an impatient kick of her legs without waiting for a reply.

She swam into a grand entrance hall and heard muffled noises coming from the staircase to her left, so she swam upstairs—wondering as she did so what exactly the point of building stairs underwater was supposed to be—and followed a tube-like corridor to where it ended at a pair of ornate golden doors. She could hear something like music coming from the other side, so she pressed her hands against the doors and kicked her legs with all her strength until they began to open.

"No, no, no, stop!" cried a voice. She ignored it, pushing open the doors the rest of the way and swimming into the room beyond. After taking in the sight before her, she realized the voice was not talking to her.

She had emerged onto a small balcony, which overlooked the largest opera house she had ever seen, complete with rows and rows of spectator seats that were currently empty and an orchestra pit that was presently filled to the brim with selkies of all sizes, each clutching some manner of unlikely underwater instrument. There were drums made of what looked like sharkskin stretched over hollowed out coral and violins drawn taut with seaweed strings and driven by bows of mermaid hair. The amalgamation of instruments and selkie virtuosos created an oddly grotesque effect from afar.

Beside her on the balcony was a merman with russet locks that hung to his waist and a tail that sparkled gold and silver as he lashed it back and forth angrily. He pointed a jewel-encrusted trident at the band below and cried, "You call that staccato, Wavespinner? Pluck those strings like you have opposable thumbs, for Trident's sake! This is to be the premier orchestral arrangement in all of Atlantis, and I will not have you mucking up the grand finale! Do it again."

"Or don't," she cut in, scowling at the merman. He spun in the water to face her and she caught the outline of a red jewel on his right shoulder. She didn't know why the Dominion Jewel insisted on taking such ridiculous forms when she'd given it a perfectly serviceable construct to begin with. Probably its incredibly developed ego played a part.

"What are you doing here?" he sneered. "The concert isn't ready yet, obviously. Come back later."

"You know very well why I'm here," she said, glaring. "I have a splitting headache. What are you doing to me?"

"What am I doing?" The jewel-possessed merman tossed his head of floating hair superiorly. "What are _you_ doing? You've burned through an obscene amount of magic already today. I'm not going to have enough to finish this ensemble to appropriate standards."

"I don't give two Knuts about your imaginary orchestra!" she shouted, utterly exasperated. The effect of her ire was completely ruined by the stream of bubbles that seemed to be on delayed effect exiting her mouth, so that it was several seconds after she'd shouted that the bubbles finally dissipated.

"Do you like it?" he asked, smiling coquettishly at her. It was an entirely disgusting expression on a middle-aged merman. "I designed the bubbles so that anyone who came into this mindscape who wasn't me would look like a complete idiot."

She noted that no bubbles occurred when he spoke and felt like baring her teeth. Of course he had decided that emasculating an intruder by forcing him to produce bubbles every time he spoke fulfilled the order he was under to defend her mind. She rubbed her temple and refocused on the issue at hand. "You cannot debilitate me with headaches just because you don't like how I'm using my magic. It's not your decision. It is my magic and you can't stop me from using it."

"I can make it very uncomfortable, though, can't I?" The jewel-fuelled construct smiled widely.

"How are you doing that, anyway?" Harry asked suspiciously. "You shouldn't be able to affect the physical world from in here."

"I can't, but there are consequences to the things I do here," the jewel said, looking bored now. "Boys. Show the little lady how it works."

She looked over to see a pair of selkies with enormous cymbals standing at attention. As one, they slammed their metal instruments into the sides of the orchestra pit and an inhuman howl of sound rang in echoes all around the opera house. Harry cried out as a sharp pain reintroduced itself into her skull and sent her thrashing in the water until she bumped into the rail of the balcony and curled into the fetal position, clutching her head.

"Stop," she commanded sharply. "Stop it right now and don't do that again." The pain immediately receded in the wake of the fading sound and she uncurled herself slowly.

"I'll find some other way to annoy you," the construct said, yawning. "I can't allow you to simply waste our magic whenever you want."

"It's replenishable," she ground out. "And it's my magic."

"Yours, mine, ours." The jewel waved a hand unconcernedly. "The point is I clearly have to be the rational one here. If you drain it dry all the time, you'll leave us with nothing for emergencies."

"You just want it to build this stupid underwater opera house. Sound doesn't even travel well underwater," she said, rubbing her eyes tiredly. "What's the point?"

"I'm bored," the construct pouted. Also not a good look for a merman. "I need this entertainment to console myself about being locked up here away from the world."

"You pushed your way in here," she reminded it.

"Well, it obviously didn't work out like I'd planned," it snapped back. "How was I to know that you had an elaborate trap already built especially for such a situation? It's seriously weird, you know that?"

"I'm not the weird one in this equation," she said, gesturing angrily at the entire underwater spectacle that the jewel was wasting magic on for no other reason than to amuse itself.

"This is art, you plebian." The jewel threw its own arms into the air in exasperation. "Out. Get out of my Atlantis and don't come back until you're ready to appreciate the complex web of creativity I have woven here."

"You can't throw me out of my own mindscape," she spluttered.

"Watch me," the jewel hissed. It brandished the jewel-encrusted trident at her and a wave of hot water jetted across the space, like a whip of bubbles boiling in a slashing arc toward her. So shocked was she that it dared to brandish her own magic at her that she didn't move out of the way in time. The boiling stream struck her across the torso, but didn't burn her. She looked down at herself perplexed, examining her avatar. She looked and felt perfectly fine. "No," the jewel snarled, hurling another bolt of magic at her. She stared back defiantly as it splashed against her face harmlessly and dissipated into the water around her.

"That. Is. It." She was so done with this overgrown stalagmite trying to tell her what to do. There was absolutely no reason to let it keep leeching off her magic when there was no longer a Time-Turner around to produce the risk of resonance feedback. Now that she wasn't still reeling emotionally and mentally from the blows of those two weeks in captivity, she was ready to do what she should have done from the beginning.

"Don't do anything you'll regret," the jewel said nervously, floating backwards away from her a little bit.

"I won't regret it," she promised. She attuned her attention to her own magical core. It felt far away to her senses, for all that she knew she was right in front of it. It was like reaching for something familiar that you'd dropped underwater. It felt different as she groped for it, even though she knew intellectually it was the same thing. She felt it stir at her insistent mental prodding. The jewel grabbed at its stomach as though it was going to be sick.

"What are you doing?" the jewel groaned, doubling over. "Stop it."

"I'm taking my magic back," she said aloud, hypothesizing that giving the construct that contained the jewel's will an order would smooth the transition. "You can't have it anymore. _Release my core_."

She coupled the command with a lash of her will, tugging the magic of her core toward her, not caring how the violent reclaiming affected the jewel's sensibilities. _Come back to me,_ she coaxed it silently. _Come back to where you belong_.

It started as a small trickle, just a lick of flame that crept from between the construct's lips and spewed out in sputtering fits from between the jewel's beefy fingers. She tugged on the connection between the magic and her, imagining that she was reverse-imbuing a potion, drawing the magic out of its container firmly.

The tongue of flame multiplied, the fire spewing from the merman's mouth in earnest, faster and faster, until the force of it pried his jaws apart to make way for the lava and ash that spilled out into the water around them. It solidified and began to slowly orbit, a small ball of fire that grew steadily larger as she insistently pulled and coaxed the current wider. The construct was belching fire now, a steady torrent that scorched the water around them into a flurry of bubbles that streamed up all around them.

Her re-forming core grew with a fury before her eyes. She smiled in satisfaction. A part of her that she hadn't known was feeling stifled was suddenly free, as though she'd been wearing thick, restrictive armor for months on end and could breathe in deeply and fully for the first time in too long. It was invigorating, watching her core defy all logic and understanding and form a giant ball of roaring fire a hundred feet underwater.

The fire stopped flowing from the merman's lips, and he gazed up at her weakly between wandering strands of hair. "Don't," he tried, pausing to cough a cloud of ash into the water pressing against his own face. "Don't take it all. Please."

She put a hand to the fiery core and stroked it fondly. "Take us back to the base layer of my core, jewel."

Bitterly, the merman snapped his fingers and the water world around them melted away. She found herself on the face of her old mountain and looked around to take stock of it.

The snow was gone, and she wondered if it would ever again be the icy fortress it had been. The mountain was overgrown with grasses of various shades of green, and she thought she saw a couple of trees beginning to sprout near its peak. Her core appeared to recognize the mountain intrinsically, gravitating toward the place at the very top where a piece of it had once sat.

"You can't stay out here," she told it, somewhat apologetically. She hated to shut it away in the mountain again, but she would have to at some point. The yellow-orange sun approached her slowly, hovering before her almost inquiringly. "Part of you can, for now, but in a few months I'll need you to stay inside the mountain. It's safer in there." Especially as having foreign entities traipsing through her head had become something of a disturbing trend.

Fire shifted over the surface of the sphere disgruntledly for a moment, but then the magic obediently split itself into two pieces, one significantly smaller than the other. The smaller piece soared upwards to take its place at the apex of her mindscape, where it would project a perfectly average magical aura for as long as she was Harry Potter. The larger sphere bumped her almost playfully in the shoulder, as though to say it wasn't upset at its partial suppression, before floating toward the illusory entrance to her potions lab.

"Sycophant," a voice scoffed in disgust.

She turned to see the jewel-construct, back in the original form she'd given it and looking much diminished, sitting on the grassy mountainside in a morose attitude. "Sorry, did you say something?" she asked sweetly.

"After all you did to that overgrown bonfire, it still cozies up to you," the jewel said, grimacing. "Didn't you lock it away for, like, ten years?"

"It wasn't that long," she muttered, glancing toward the entrance to her lab a bit guiltily. "I guess it forgave me. It understands that I was young and confused."

"It understands that it should get on your good side so you don't chain it up again," the jewel sneered.

"Maybe you could learn a thing or two from that overgrown bonfire, then," she suggested in a mild tone.

"I am Dominion!" The construct leapt to its feet, bringing itself to exactly her eyelevel as it glared dove-grey eyes at her green ones. "I do not submit. I am worshiped. I do not toady to sacks of flesh."

"No one is asking you to be my slave," she sighed. "I don't even want you in here."

The jewel seethed at her. "I destroyed my physical form in order to inhabit yours. Even if I wasn't trapped in this ridiculously limited mental construct, I still couldn't leave your mind for the physical realm _now_."

"So I can't get rid of you," she surmised. With a shrug, she tucked her hands into the pockets on her avatar's brewing robes and blew out a short breath. "Well, I'd assumed that much anyway. I suppose we'll have to learn to live with each other."

"One does not learn to live with tyranny," the jewel said, a bit dramatically in her opinion.

"My requirements are perfectly reasonable, considering that technically my mind is the victim of your invasion, which makes you the unwelcome aggressor in every circumstance," she pointed out. "All I need you to do is sit quietly up here and not cripple me with headaches whenever it suits you."

"All you need me to do is waste away without a purpose," the construct moaned. "I'm supposed to be controlling you. That was the deal."

"There was no deal," she argued. "You misinterpreted my needs for your own exploitative greed."

"Same thing," the dark-haired boy said, waving a hand dismissively.

She closed her eyes and wondered why she was bothering to argue with it. She had come here to get rid of a headache, not give herself another one. "Look," she said at last. "The bottom line is I'm in charge and you aren't. Obviously you can't be trusted to use my magic responsibly, so I'm not giving it back. You'll just have to learn to live without it. Find a new purpose."

The construct stared hard at her for a long moment, but then a slow smile bloomed across its face. "Actually…I do have a new purpose. You gave it to me, didn't you? I am to protect your mind from invasion. I need magic for that."

"You don't need magic—"

"Wasn't it you who wanted me to manage the layers of your mind in lieu of any true mastery of the skill by yourself?" The jewel leaned closer to her, smirking widely. "Something about maintaining a complicated fiction that depended on projecting the right sort of aura at the right times? It would be such a shame if I couldn't help you out with that."

Or if it deliberately sabotaged her, she thought darkly. What she said aloud was, "I've managed fine without you."

"It's been difficult, though, hasn't it?" the construct asked, picking at its nails now. "It could be so easy—you wouldn't even have to worry about it beyond sending me a little mental nudge when it was time to switch layers. And your mind _is_ safer from Legilimency probes when I'm managing its defenses."

She didn't want to be tempted, but…it had a point. She didn't know how to maintain multiple layers in her mindscape. It was an extremely advanced Occlumency technique, at least she thought it was from what little she'd been able to find out about it after first witnessing it done in Ginny's mind by Riddle Jr.'s construct. As it was, it took her a good twenty minutes at her fastest just to move her magic and manifestations back and forth between the outer and inner portions of her mountainscape. To be able to switch her aura seamlessly in an emergency…well, that could be useful.

It would also be incredibly reassuring to know that her Occlumency was good enough to withstand a master Legilimens' probing for her secrets. As it was, she had been relying on her Occlumency primarily as a warning system in the event that someone attempted to pry secrets from her mind. She wasn't sure it would stand up to a truly skilled opponent who was determined to know her thoughts.

She couldn't give the jewel power over her magic again as things were, though. It was much too unpredictable to trust. She would have to bring it over to her side…slowly.

"You're right," she said, giving the construct a frank stare. "I could leave you up here to languish but it would be a waste of a valuable resource and I suspect it would only give you time to find other ways of vexing me."

The jewel smirked. "Glad you've seen reason. Now about my magic—"

"I wasn't finished," she interrupted, smiling sharply. "I think we can come to an agreement, but it will be just that—a bargain upheld by both sides, with consequences for disregarding its stipulations."

Something like pleasure flashed in the boy's eyes. "Oh, I do love a contract of power. What's it to be then, fleshling? I have much knowledge to offer a heathen such as yourself. I can teach you how to bend the natural world to your whims, how to influence the creatures you encounter to your advantage, even how to appropriate the magic of others as your own. It will be difficult, of course, without my physical form to channel your magic through—you'll have to learn the hard way, I'm afraid. Still, it will be worth the many years of labor when you rule the seven—"

"Not interested," she groaned. "Can you just listen for five minutes? This is what I need you to do: create a second layer in my mind—not a temporary one, a permanent one that will stay as consistent as my mountain world. That will be the primary layer from now until I return to school. Then you will have to live in the mountain world as the primary layer at all times."

"Not this dreary place," the construct complained loudly.

"Build what you like beneath the mountain," she growled. "Just leave the surface of the mountain alone. It needs to be identifiable any time a Legilimens scans my shields."

"You say that as if you're expecting it to happen all the—wait," the construct's eyes widened suddenly as what she'd said caught up to it. "You're giving me back the magic."

"Not all of it," she said, holding up a hand warningly. "Just enough for you to make changes around here. I'm keeping the rest of it free, and you will neither monitor nor begrudge the way I use it—that's an order. No more headaches."

"Yes, fine," the construct said, face alight with greed. "Give me the magic."

She held out her hand and summoned a fistful of magic from the spinning orb at the peak of her mountain with a single, clear thought. It flew to her immediately and danced around her fingers. She twirled it for a moment, smiling at the warm feeling it evoked in her breast, and then she held it out to the jewel. "Here. This is your allowance. Once you spend it, you'll have to wait for it to replenish itself naturally. You will not at any time attempt to consume more magic without my permission."

"That's not enough!" the jewel protested, eyes wide now with dismay. "That's barely anything."

"It's plenty if you don't use it wastefully," she said sternly. "Just build slowly and economize a little."

The construct looked _highly_ offended at the idea of being thrifty with magic. It looked down at the generous ball of magic in its palm with complete distain.

"If you don't want it…" she said, reaching out to take it.

The construct snatched its hand back and swallowed the orb whole without further delay, a petulantly defiant expression on its face as it gulped the magic down. Once it had ingested the magic, she turned to survey her mind one more time before she left to get back to brewing. With luck, she would get back to her body before her parents came down to remind her to eat lunch.

"Not so fast," the construct said smoothly, catching her by the shoulder. She tilted her head toward it with long-suffering resignation.

"What now?"

"Our deal is not yet stuck," it informed her. "I have conditions of my own."

Her eyes narrowed and she crossed her arms with a huff. "What conditions could you possibly have? I'm not giving you any more magic, and what I want you to do with the magic is non-negotiable. It's too important."

"I can see that," the construct said, stepping closer to her avatar with undisguised curiosity lighting fires in its eyes. "I want to know _why_."

She stepped back, frowning at it. "I don't—"

"I'll make it easy for you," the jewel said bluntly. "Give me access to your memories. I want to know exactly what brought you to this web you seem to be weaving. I want to know what your plans are. If I'm going to be stuck in your head forever, I ought to have some understanding of what your life entails. It sounds _fascinating_ , I must say." It said the last with a slow, relishing smile.

She pressed her lips together and thought it over. The jewel was basically asking for all of her secrets. Her ingrained instincts said _no no no_ , but her rationality had to point out that there was nothing the construct could do with her secrets. It was literally confined to her own head. Not to mention bound to act in a way that was in her best interests, even if it did sometimes stretch those interests to include things that suited it, like 'conserving magic for emergencies.' She could command it never to reveal her secrets, and it would have to obey. There was also the possibility that it would be much easier to deal with if it knew why she asked it to do certain things. The jewel seemed self-serving in most things, so why shouldn't she turn that to her advantage by showing it how precarious her situation was? Once it understood that a single mistake could land her—and by extension it—in Azkaban forever, it might be a little more leery of distracting her unnecessarily.

"I'll make this place into a fortress," the construct said idly. She noted that it must be dying of curiosity if it was willing to stoop to cajoling enticements. "No one will ever be able to break through all the defenses I erect. I'll drive any intruders mad before they even realize they've stumbled into something above their pay grade."

"You sound very confident you can pull this off," she remarked, still thinking it over. "Driven a lot of people insane?"

The smile on the construct's face was not at all reassuring. "Only when they've failed me. If you're wondering if I'll do the same to you—don't. You passed the test already. You've proven your worth as a host. I could wish for a little more _ambition_ , but your control certainly doesn't leave anything to be desired. Your willpower alone will take us far."

She wanted to say something contrary like 'No it wont,' but she was aware that breaking off into tangents was the last thing that would allow them to progress in this wearisome conversation. "Tell you what," she said eventually. "I'll give you access to some of my memories—only the ones pertaining to the ruse. My personal life is none of your business."

"It's a start," the construct said, looking incredibly anticipatory. "Can I view them now?"

"Not now," she said, shaking her head. "I'll set aside some time later this week and go through them with you."

"I know how to access a memory orb—"

"And I know you're a nosy hunk of corundum," she snapped. "No, you won't be rifling through my space room on your own. I will make time soon and give you access to the ones with information you'll need to conduct yourself usefully on my behalf. You will not have access to them once viewed and at no time will you attempt to interfere with or influence any aspect of my manifestations."

"Fine." The jewel sniffed. "It seems we have an accord."

"I won't forgive any mistakes after this," she warned it seriously. "I do think you can be a useful addition to my mindscape, but if you prove yourself to be detrimental to my plans I will build a mental box and put you in it, then bury it so far under my mountain that even I won't be able to dig you out again. Understood?"

"You won't be disappointed with my work," the construct assured her silkily.

She gave it a last, measuring look before turning away from the mountain and allowing her consciousness to slip toward the mists at its periphery. As she was fading back to reality, she heard a voice whisper softly, "Don't stay away too long."

She shuddered upon awaking on the floor of her lab. It was a sad state of affairs when she felt off-balance in her own mind. Still, if she could succeed in making the jewel invested in the outcome of her artifice, she would have a valuable weapon up her sleeve. That the weapon had the potential to be double-edged only meant she had to treat it very, very carefully. Harry was no stranger to handling things with care. She cracked her neck deftly as she removed the stasis charm over her cauldron and smoothly picked up stirring where she'd left off no telling how many hours before. She smiled a little as some part of her recognized automatically exactly what she had to do next. It was so nice when things proceeded precisely according to plan.

-0—0—0

-0—0

-0

[end of chapter one].

A/N: Here we are again, faithful readers. As some of you may have guessed, following the pattern of books so far as alternating between a major Alanna plot line and a major HP arc, this book will give a bow to the Triwizard Tournament. It may not be quite the tournament you're used to, though, so try to keep an open mind.

Thanks again to everyone who's made it this far. Your support and feedback make the writing process so dynamic; sometimes I forget I'm writing fiction and feel instead that I'm merely relaying the inevitable conclusion to all my readers' hopes and suppositions.

All the very best,

-Violet Matter


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Great responses to the first chapter! You guys are the best. This chapter gets a lot of things underway, but I have to warn you—it's the chapter of letters. Prepare for awkwardly convenient exposition. And to anyone with final exams coming up—stop right now and don't read it! Study! There, I tried. Enjoy.

 **The Futile Façade:**

 **Chapter 2:**

When she'd finished as many of the Protection Potions as she could manage without exhausting herself unreasonably, she loaded them into a crate and left for the alleys. Unfortunately, her father caught her on her way to the Floo and stopped to stare at his daughter carrying an entire crate of potion bottles up from her lab. She stared back.

"Hi, Dad," she said, careful not to shift her weight guiltily. "What are you doing home so early?" She was certain it was not yet dinnertime.

"I came home to collect my Wellies," he said slowly, eyeing the bottles she carried with a frown. "It's supposed to rain later, and I have a field assignment."

"That's unusual," she commented. "You usually do deskwork these days, right?"

"Normally," he agreed. His eyes flicked up to hers. "What are you doing with those, Harry? I don't think the DMLE ordered any more just yet, did we?"

Of course he recognized the potion, she thought with an internal sigh. What should she say? A crazy idea crept over her and she wondered…what if she just told the truth? She was already brewing potions for the Aurors at her dad's request—charging for them, even. Was that really so different than her work with Krait? "I was going to take them to Diagon," she said, thinking it through quickly. There was no reason James should disapprove if she worded it right. "Your department commissioning some gave me the idea that I could market them commercially. I'm going to see if one of the apothecaries in the alley would be interested in selling them. I liked your idea of starting my own Gringotts account, so…" she trailed off with affected hesitation. "Is it silly? I guess no one will want to sell something a kid made…"

"No, it's not silly," James said firmly, smiling with obvious pride. "I think it's a wonderful idea—I always knew you had a bit of your dad's entrepreneur spirit in you. Do you want me to go with you? I have a little time before I need to be back at the office."

He looked so excited; she hated to turn him down, but…she'd promised Krait he would be the first to sell her potion, and that meant she couldn't take her dad to Tate's apothecary or somewhere else respectable in order to make her story credible. "Thanks, but I want to try doing this on my own," she said, smiling to show she really was grateful for his offer. "I don't want anyone agreeing to sell them just because my famous Auror dad is with me."

"Admirable," James said, resting a hand on her head fondly. "You're going to be a great businesswoman, Harry. Have you thought about expanding your ideas and making a whole line of them? As I understand it, this brewing method of yours is rather novel, but it won't be long before everyone wants to replicate it. You could patent it, I suppose…" He scratched his head thoughtfully. "Can you patent a brewing technique? I know you can a recipe."

"I don't want to patent it," she said quickly. "I'm not trying to make a ton of gold off my ideas. I just want to get my potions out there, so people who have a need for them can have access to something that will make their lives easier."

James' face softened and his hand moved to pat her shoulder in gentle approval. "That's my girl. Still, there's no reason you can't help people and make a bit of a profit. Think about it and let me know if you need any help—I do have a bit of experience in commercializing products."

She smiled up at him. "Thanks, Dad. It means a lot that you're supporting this."

His smile faltered for a moment, but came back quickly. "Of course. I'll support anything you decide to do, my fawn." He wrapped her in a brief, if somewhat awkward because of the crate, embrace. "Go get 'em, Harry. And good luck."

She nodded, making a show of determination that had him smiling back encouragingly. He took the stairs up to find his rain boots and she made for the Floo with relief fighting for room in her gut among the guilt. She shouldn't feel bad, she told herself exasperatedly. She'd been lying by omission to her parents about selling her potions for nearly two years. It was idiotic to feel guilt _now,_ as she finally told a bit of the truth.

Her father's reaction had been so earnest, though—so entirely encouraging. She knew it was because the business aspect of being a potioneer was something James could relate to easily. Her dad could see himself in her, when he pictured her selling a product she invented, and she knew that gave him a particularly acute feeling of pride. That support for her work was something she'd been looking for all along, though, and to finally have it made her warm with satisfaction. That it was tainted by her continued dishonesty about where she was selling her potions and how long it had been going on…well, it was a shame, but it couldn't be helped at this point.

She made it to Diagon Alley with little trouble, used by now to Flooing with her hands full, however unpleasant she still found the method of travel. With a thrill, she realized she'd soon be learning an entirely different form of getting around, if Leo was as good as his word. If Apparating turned out to be more pleasant that Flooing, she might even be tempted to use the new ability unscrupulously.

Conscious of Rispah's warning, Harry kept a keener eye on her surroundings as she moved off of Diagon and onto Knockturn. She didn't see anyone paying special attention to her, but she supposed the folks of the Rogue were better at blending in than she was at picking them out.

The Serpent's Storeroom had a few customers when she nudged her way in, so Harry waved to Krait on her way to the storage area. She set her crate down out of the way and went back to the front counter to wait for Krait to finish talking to a thin young woman in dark widow's weeds. While she was waiting, an elderly wizard with a soft red cap that listed to one side approached the counter with a bottle of Cadsworth's Cough and Congestion Remedy. She stepped over to the register to ring him up and noticed a slight wheeze as he sighed over the cost. She grimaced. Cadsworth's was ridiculously expensive for what was essentially honeyed tea. After a moment of indecision—and a quick glance to make sure Krait didn't notice—she asked, "Is this for you?"

The old man looked up with surprise and opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by a phlegmy cough before he rasped, "Yes."

"Have you had the cough long?" she asked. He frowned slightly, so she added, "I don't mean to pry, but Cadsworth's Cough and Congestion Remedy is quite mild. Most of its ingredients can be found in your pantry. If you have a very light cold I'd sooner recommend hot tea and bed rest."

The elderly wizard looked troubled. "I've—" he coughed again. "I've had this cough for weeks. I tried Wheezer's Relief, but it didn't seem to be—" more huffing "—doing much, so I thought…" He trailed off into a series of uncomfortable sounding coughs. They weren't too weak, which she took as a good sign that there wasn't anything irreversibly wrong with his lungs themselves. He probably just had a mild infection.

"To be honest, Cadsworth's is only more expensive because they market it heavily," she said, glancing again to make sure Krait was still occupied. "It's not any better than homemade cough remedies." The old man looked quite dejected, scowling uncertainly. She asked, "Have you considered a stronger antihistamine?"

"Anti—" he coughed into his hand with an annoyed frown. "Antihistamine? For swelling?"

"If you've been coughing for weeks, your lungs are probably inflamed—either from the constant coughing itself or an underlying cause," Harry told him. "Did you have a sore throat when you started coughing? Or nasal congestion?"

He shook his head, looking slightly bewildered. "Just a constant cough," he said, punctuating the statement with a soft cough.

"It doesn't sound like a cold to me," she told him honestly. "If you've had a fever it could be something like pneumonia, especially if you've felt at all nauseated of late."

The elderly wizard shook his head again. "Just the cough. Some chest pain."

She frowned. "Could be bronchitis." Usually bronchitis was viral, but it could also have an environmental cause depending on what the man did for a living. Treating the cough by itself probably wasn't going to help him. "I think you should go to a clinic," she said after a moment of thought. "I know it isn't any of my business, but unless the cough is lingering from an infection you've already treated, it isn't going to get better by itself. This type of over-the-counter suppressant soothes your throat but doesn't treat the lungs themselves. Suppressing the cough can actually prolong the illness if your lungs are trying to cough up something irritating them."

He nodded slowly. "You may be right, young man. I'll—" he coughed several times, then shook his head in irritation. "I'll see if they can see me at Maywell today. Should I…?" He gestured to the bottle of Cadsworth's on the counter. She picked it up with a cheery smile. "I'll put it back for you, sir."

"Thank you very much," he said, tottering toward the door. He waved briefly before stepping out onto the alley with prolonged hacking. Hopefully Mrs. Hurst could clear out his lungs before the day was out.

She was clearing the purchase from the register when Krait sidled over with a suspicious scowl. "Did you just talk that customer out of buying my wares?"

Harry blinked innocently at him. "Why would I do that?"

Krait huffed in disbelief. "I'm on to you, kid. You're going to scare my customers away just so you can open your own apothecary one day."

"You got me," Harry said, sighing wistfully. "In fact I poisoned all of those potions I just brought in. It may seem counterintuitive to kill off all your customers, but I'm thinking I can draw in their family and friends afterwards."

Recalling the reason she was there, Krait ignored her nonsensical words and made for the storage area eagerly. "Just one crate?" he asked, somewhat disappointed.

"These aren't easy to make," she said defensively. "It's not like a Shrinking Solution. The amount of magic I have to imbue is prohibitive to the pace."

"All right," Krait said, shrugging. "I believe you. Which ones are which?"

"These," she said, gesturing to the left side of the crate, "are the Protection Potions. They have blue labels. The yellow labels are the Ward Disrupters. There's an equal number of each."

"Perfect," Krait said, looking as happy as a clam. He rubbed his hands together with a shark-like grin. "Burke is going to wet his robes for these."

"Just don't tell them I invented them," she reminded him sternly. "I don't need people knowing Harry Potter works in your shop. Tell Burke I just figured it out or something, okay?"

"Sure thing," Krait said easily. "You keep making these babies for me and I'll tell people whatever you want. Tell 'em you're a dancing bear."

"I'm sure that won't be necessary," she said, rolling her eyes briefly.

Krait muttered to himself about prices and profits for a moment before turning to her with a measuring look. "What do these cost to produce, kid? I can give you a forty-five percent labor fee on 'em—seeing as they're so difficult to make. I'm going to sell 'em to Burke for a king's ransom, in any case."

Harry smiled slightly. "They don't cost much in terms of ingredients, actually. The base recipe is incredibly simple. I don't think the difference between the usual thirty percent and forty-five percent is going to be significant."

Krait made a face at her. "Do you want to earn gold on these or not, Harry? Just name your price."

She hesitated, then said, "I'll take the regular thirty, with the condition that if a werewolf wants one, it's free."

Krait balked for a moment. "What for? I can't eat the cost for every moon-challenged moocher that walks in."

Harry gave him an unimpressed look. "You don't have that many werewolf customers. You're going to make a tidy sum on these potions as long as other brewers have trouble duplicating them, and I don't think offering them free of charge to a few who genuinely may need them to protect themselves and others is going to eat into your overhead—which I have just agreed subsidize for this purpose, may I remind you."

Krait made a show of grumbling, but gave in without much argument—a sure sign that he was putting up a front on principle and didn't really mind her request.

"Tell Burke the same," she told him. "He can sell them to as many rich lords and ladies as he likes, but if a werewolf should ask, he is to refer them to you at no cost."

"Yeah, all right," Krait said, not unhappily.

She smiled, feeling good about that stipulation. She was aware from what Remus had said that he felt more vulnerable on the New Wolfsbane, which made him docile and drowsy. She also knew that many werewolves, like Remus, worried about what might happen to others around them if they were not properly contained and something went wrong with the Wolfsbane. This way, any werewolf who heard about the potion could get it from Krait no matter their economic situation.

She bade farewell to Krait, promising to bring another crate of the Protection Potion, in addition to the other potions she brewed for the apothecary, later that week. When she stepped out onto the narrow alley, dusk had fallen. She swept her eyes along the street and smiled when she saw Leo loitering in a doorway across the street. She walked over to survey his eminently casual posture with a wry smile.

"How much time do you waste waiting on me?" she asked, a laugh in her voice. "What would you have done if it rained?"

"It wouldn't dare," Leo said, sticking his tongue out at the darkening sky and grinning as Harry smiled against her will at his antics. "Besides, I don't _wait_. I have perfect timing."

Harry shook her head. "Sure. And the leaves in your hair that look like they've been drifting down from that potted plant over your head for a while are just the latest fashion, I suppose?"

Leo reached up with a hand to pat his head sheepishly, then frowned as he realized there was nothing in his hair.

Harry laughed. "So you _were_ waiting. Maybe you should bring a book next time. Or, I don't know, disrupt the aura of mystery you like to cultivate and just come inside to tell me you're here."

Leo grinned sheepishly. "Ah, that wouldn't be any fun, Harry."

They set off toward where Knockturn joined up with Kyprioth Court. Newly lit torches illuminated their path as the lower alleys slowly came to life around them. It was always busier down here at night, just as the crowds began ebbing from the shops and guilds of Diagon and the other high alleys. Harry breathed in deep, appreciating the familiar sights, and Leo glanced askance at her, considering.

"There's something different about you, lass," he said musingly. "What did you do?"

She supposed he was referring to the uncanny sensing abilities his magic seemed to possess. That he could tell she'd fundamentally reorganized her core that morning didn't surprise her. "What seems different about me?" she asked, curious to see what exactly he was sensing.

Leo's eyebrows rose as he said, "You feel warmer. Yesterday there was a coldness about your magic that irked mine terribly—if my magic had teeth, they'd have been aching and on edge. But whatever that was is gone. I can feel your magic again, stronger than ever, in fact. It radiates from you like heat, except I can feel it in my mind, not on my skin." He smirked in a self-deprecating way when his explanation came out a bit odd. "What have you done, then?"

"Just sorted some things that needed sorting," she hummed, smiling slightly. She did feel different, knowing that the jewel was under control and her magic was freely inhabiting her mind once more, uncontained except by her own natural defenses.

As they approached the Dancing Phoenix she asked, "Are you really going to teach me how to Apparate tonight?"

"I said I would, didn't I?" Leo grinned. "We'll have to learn in the courtyard away from prying eyes, not to mention under the anti-Trace wards, but you don't want to go long distances until you get the hang of it anyway."

She nodded, anticipation lighting eager fires in her muscles. It had been too long since she learned something entirely novel. What better way to test the new freedom and cooperation of her magical core than by attempting a difficult and reputedly dangerous new skill?

They ducked into the pub, answering waves and greetings—Leo more than her—while making a beeline to the kitchens. They dodged the dinner staff and ducked into the empty courtyard. She knew it was not really a courtyard, the sky overhead being only an illusion of the night sky, but with an artificial breeze blowing through it to counteract the heat that built up from the kitchens, it was a convincing façade. If she hadn't already known the truth, she didn't think she would have ever guessed.

"So how do I do this?" she asked, shifting to begin loosening her muscles automatically.

Leo laughed. "Well, you don't have to be limber. Apparating is all in your mind. The usual spiel is there are three D's: Determination, Destination, and Deliberation. You have to be determined to reach your destination, and you must do it deliberately—don't rush or get distracted."

After waiting for a beat, she raised one eyebrow. "That's it? Is there at least a wand movement for beginners?" She had never seen her parents use one, but she had assumed they were simply so practiced at it that they'd dropped the wand movement.

"Oh, there's a movement," Leo said mischievously. He turned on the spot and for a moment Harry thought he was making fun of her, till he disappeared before her eyes and she felt the air displace behind her.

Whirling, she grinned up at him. "That was a lovely twirl. I'm sure my first attempt won't be half as graceful."

"Very amusing," Leo said. He nudged her toward one side of the courtyard and then walked himself to the other. He drew an X in the dirt and motioned for her to go ahead.

She eyed her landing mark for a moment then took a deep breath. She pictured the spot in her mind as clearly as she could—it wasn't hard, considering she was staring right at it. She supposed it would be more difficult if you had to rely on a visualization that came from memory or, even more challenging, a description. She felt a little foolish, turning her mind to the task of Apparation. Was she really just supposed to imagine it happening? She would have to draw on her magic, obviously, but how would she know when to release it? And what direction would she release it in?

"You're overthinking it," Leo called. "This type of magic has no wand movements or incantations for a reason: it depends entirely on your own will. Believe that it will happen, and it will."

Harry wasn't sure how to make herself believe something purposely. She remembered all the times she had seen her parents Apparate, trying to solidify those memories into an assurance that she was capable of the same. After a moment, however, she realized she didn't need to do that. She knew how to apply her will to her own magic. If that's all Apparating was, then she had learned to do it long ago.

She drew instead on the part of herself that had just that morning told the Dominion Jewel to give up control of her magic. Her will was a sharp, tempered thing, and as her resolve solidified it was almost easy to make the request. All of her focus narrowed to the X on the other side of the courtyard. _Take me there_ , she thought at her magic. It was not a request. It was more like a prediction that she knew was going to come true.

She turned on the spot, and felt the world draw away from her—or maybe she was drawing away from it. It felt like traveling to her mindscape, except faster and more abrupt, and instead of her losing track of her physical body she felt as though she was shoved into a more acute awareness of its every fiber. She supposed this was important for Apparating, as without an awareness of every part of her body she might leave something behind. Then she couldn't suppose anything because she was suddenly experiencing the most bizarre sensation she'd ever encountered.

Something was squeezing her from all angles, and while it wasn't painful, it was about as uncomfortable as one could get just shy of real pain. It felt as though the universe were attempting to thread her through the eye of a needle. Her existence shrank until it had diminished to a single, self-conscious speck in the dark matter of the world. Then, just as abruptly, her consciousness was released from the grasp of time and space and the world rushed back to greet her.

She gasped and her knees buckled as they hit the earth. She braced herself on her arms and took several deep breaths to stave off the nausea. "Why," she panted, raising her head to look at Leo incredulously, "would anyone…do that…more than once?"

Leo looked apologetic as he reached down a hand to help her to her feet. "It is pretty horrible the first time. Sorry I didn't warn you, but if you knew how bad it was you would have had a harder time with the determination part."

She shook herself as though she could erase the memory of the last ten seconds. A thought occurred to her and she hurriedly checked her body for limbs, fingers, and toes. She appeared to be in one piece, clothes and all. Laughing in relief and shock, she clenched her fists in triumph. "I did it," she said, pride in her tone. With a long sigh she put her hands on her hips and nodded firmly. "And I hope I never have to do it again."

"You have to practice," Leo disagreed. "It's only an advantage if you can do it instinctively, without time to prepare yourself and without taking long moments to reorient yourself afterwards."

She grimaced. "Does it get better after the first time?"

Leo smiled unreassuringly. "Well…you get used to it eventually."

"So that's a no," she muttered. She rolled out her shoulders in a purely self-comforting motion and set her face determinately. "All right. Let's do this."

"That's the spirit," Leo said, clapping her on the back encouragingly. "Try turning in the other direction this time."

She did. And then she did it several more times until Leo was satisfied she could traverse short distances without risk of splinching herself. By the end of it, she was mentally exhausted. She nearly tripped over her own feet making her way back into the pub's dining area to rest.

"You'll want to eventually learn to travel between significant distances," Leo was saying as they sat down at the center table. "For the tournament, though, focus on moving between short distances very quickly, until you can do it as automatically as you would fire a stunner."

She nodded tiredly, barely managing to summon a smile for the serving boy who dropped a jug of water on their table as he passed. Leo looked as if he had more advice to give, but after getting an odd look on his face he stopped talking and turned his head toward the door. She followed his gaze, realizing abruptly that the pub had gone almost entirely silent around them.

In the doorway to the pub was a tall, thin figure with brown hair that draped about his face almost to his shoulders. His skin was papery white and his black cape trailed after him like bat wings as he stepped further into the room. His eyes, an unnatural yellow, slid over the room and came to rest on Leo, who stood up respectfully and motioned the figure forward. It was a kingly gesture, she thought with surprise. This was Leo in full Rogue mode.

As the man approached, she recognized the too-graceful way he glided across the floor and deduced that he was a vampire, not a wizard. If his movements hadn't given it away, she would have known by the rasping quality of his voice, like the sweep of cobwebs being cleared by a broom after far too long.

"Rogue," the vampire said, coming to a stop beside their table. "How does the night find you?"

"Well enough," Leo said. He glanced at the room at large and waved his hand in an indication that his people should go back to their conversations. As the noise once more picked up around the pub, Leo nodded toward the table. "Won't you have a seat, Count Aurel?"

The vampire turned his gaze for a mere instant to the chair indicated before shaking his head. "I won't be long in your nest, Rogue." He swept a thin hand into his cloak and emerged with a sizable bag of gold in his fist. "Just paying our tithe, you see."

Leo smiled, but there was an edge to it Harry wasn't familiar with. "I would have come to the Lamia later tonight," he said, not removing his eyes from the vampire count. "No need to come all this way."

"It was but a whisper of the wind," the count assured him with a slight smile of his own. "I had heard news, such that rumor may be considered reliable, in any case and wished to ascertain its truth for myself."

"What news is this?" Leo asked, a mild tone of curiosity to his voice.

"You are hosting a contest of speed and strength, are you not?" the vampire inquired, yellow eyes glittering slightly.

"I am indeed," Leo said, looking apologetic. "Unfortunately, it is scheduled during the day, in order to allow optimum dueling conditions."

"Optimum for humans, you mean," the vampire said softly. "A pity. My people move quite stunningly in the dark. I suppose no exceptions will be made? My second, Gavril, should have liked to compete."

Harry blinked at the name. Gavril—that was the vampire who'd greeted her at the Lamia Lodge, where she'd stayed for a week during the Polyjuice debacle in the spring. He was the coven's second? That sounded like a high position of leadership for someone who frequently slept slumped over the front desk during daylight hours.

"That is a shame," Leo said. He softened the refusal with a grin, however. "It may be for the best, though—I'm afraid my prestige would never recover were your lieutenant to crush me in the finals. The might of the Strigoi Shrouds needs proving to no one."

"Our eminence is certain," Count Aurel agreed easily. "Good entertainment is difficult to come by, however." He sighed long and low, seeming utterly despondent. "I suppose the werewolves will be allowed to compete. Are you not afraid of losing to them in battle as well, little king?"

Leo took the slight with good humor. "Not at all. You must admit they don't have significant advantage as humans."

"Hmm," the vampire said noncommittally, glancing around the room in a show of disinterest. "There are goblins entering, I have heard."

"Two so far," Leo said, nodding. "A brother and sister, I believe. It will be interesting to see what they can do."

"Interesting for you," the count said morosely. "I will not see it."

"I'll tell you all about it," Leo promised, his smile a bit uncomfortable.

"I thank you, though I doubt it will be the same." The vampire shrugged gracefully. "I must be returning to my nest, now." He leaned toward the table to deposit the sack of gold beside the water jug.

As his face drew level with Harry's, he paused and turned slowly to face her. She blinked at him, having to force herself not to move back in obvious disquiet. The vampire, still bent over the table, tilted his head and sniffed, his eyes not leaving her face. She stiffened slightly, but reminded herself that she had never met this vampire—she hadn't met any other than Gavril and his mate Irina while staying at the Lamia Lodge, as she only moved about during the daylight hours.

The vampire count smiled oddly at her and said, ever so softly. "You smell familiar." He retracted his arm and leaned back until he was upright, though he still looked down at her with an intimidating amount of focus. "I have smelled you in my nest," he mused.

Leo's eyes snapped to her in alarm, but Harry kept her cool. "That's odd. Perhaps it was someone who smells like me. I wear a very generic perfume." She didn't actually wear perfume, but that was neither here nor there.

The vampire flashed a fang at her in amusement. "You smell less like an apothecary this time, I admit, but I am over one thousand years old, child." She swallowed nervously. He certainly didn't look a day over thirty-five. "My senses do not get confused." He slid his eyes back to Leo and nodded once. "I take my leave, Rogue."

"Always nice to see you, Count," Leo said amiably. The vampire wandered out of the pub, and when he was gone Leo turned to her with an incredulous expression of concern. "Tell me you've never been to a vampire hotel, Harry."

"Not that I know of," she said, smiling innocently. "Vampires sure are a strange lot." Casting around for a change of topic, she asked, "So that was the leader of one of the alley covens? The Shrouds, you called them?"

"The Strigoi Shrouds," Leo said, sitting back down slowly. She noticed he didn't seem fooled by her ignorant act. "Yes, he is their leader. He's one of the more normal vampires, actually. The other clan, who call themselves the Carpathian Crypts, are much more difficult. Last year, the Carpathians tried to pay their tithe in human teeth."

"Punny," she offered, a little disturbed.

"They certainly thought so," Leo said, rolling his eyes.

"Why do they pay you a tithe?" she asked suddenly. Not to disparage Leo's leadership, but these were vampires they were talking about. She knew even the Ministry had a hard time controlling them; they were territorial and incredibly prone to rivalries between covens, not to mention the whole drinking blood for sustenance thing.

"Everyone who lives or works in the lower alleys pays the Court of Rogues a tithe," Leo said, shrugging. "It's a fair exchange. The Court uses the tithes to look after our own, and that includes everyone who resides here, not just our own members. Vampire covens who choose to live in the alleys don't have to worry about their lairs being raided by unhappy neighbors in the middle of the day when they are weak. The alleys offer a relatively secluded lifestyle, as the arm of the Ministry doesn't reach very far down here. We also supply them with blood—not enough to support them completely, but enough to subsidize their needs to the point that they don't have to kill for it or rely on expensive, Ministry-run suppliers. It makes things easier for everyone."

Harry chose her next words carefully. "When you say supply…"

Leo laughed at her unnerved expression. "Oh, Harry, you're priceless. My mother runs the drive through her clinic."

Comprehension dawned. "People donate blood to vampires?" she clarified, slightly disbelieving.

"The vampires pay a handsome tithe," Leo reminded her, gesturing to the generous sack of gold on the table. "Their privacy and safety during the day is valuable to their way of life. This money goes to feeding and housing those who fall on hard times in the alleys. It goes to infrastructure such as waste removal, public Floo facilities, and wards for privacy and protection around businesses of a less than strictly legal nature. It benefits the community at large to have rich covens in our alleys, and as long as they don't cause trouble, they're welcome."

Harry's eyebrows rose. "Welcome?" She'd seen the uncomfortable and paranoid way the patrons of the Dancing Phoenix had reacted to the vampire's entrance.

Leo grimaced. "Well, tolerated. They _are_ vampires, and the Carpathian Clan in particular is known to be a tad unforgiving to those who cross them."

She had to admit the situation was very interesting, but as a yawn nearly broke her jaw in two she smiled tiredly and said, "Thanks for explaining, Leo. I should get going, though."

Leo stood and walked her out to the street. She tried to tell him he didn't have to accompany her all the way back to Diagon, but he insisted despite the slow drizzle coming down from ominously dark clouds overhead. As they walked, she thought about something he'd said. She had no idea they had public Floo systems in the lower alleys. All this time she'd been using the Floo in the Leaky Cauldron to come and go. It was good exercise, but she wondered why Leo hadn't mentioned there were closer ones. After a minute of thought, she realized it was because those public Floos were for people who belonged in the alleys. People who paid tithes to the Court and therefore deserved to make use of its services.

She thought about that for a little while, then said tentatively, "Leo?"

"Hmm?" He turned his head toward her questioningly.

"Should I be paying a tithe?" she asked, feeling very uncomfortable at the realization that she was likely in the wrong and had been for some time.

"What?" Leo smiled at her as though she had said something silly. "No, of course not."

She frowned. "Everyone who lives and works in the alley. That's what you said. I have an apartment on Dogwood Lane, and I work at Krait's place. I have for a while now. Why didn't you say anything? I would have paid my fair share."

Leo shook his head, looking troubled. "Harry, you don't owe the Court anything. Krait pays a tithe to the Court on behalf of his business, which includes the tax on his employees. You have that apartment, sure, but you don't use it. It's not like you're actually taking a share of the amenities and protection the Court is meant to supply."

Harry considered that, feeling slightly relieved, but then she remembered Mrs. Flint, who was living in her Dogwood Lane apartment. _She_ worked and lived in the alleys, and Harry was certain she didn't pay a tithe to Leo, because Harry had asked Mrs. Hurst to keep her employment and living situation a secret. In a way she _was_ cheating the Rogue.

"I'd like to pay a tithe," she said firmly, making up her mind to do the right thing even if she couldn't explain to Leo why it was right.

"Harry, there's really no need—"

"I don't want people saying I get special treatment because I'm your friend," she said. She made sure he could see the seriousness in her eyes. "I mean it, Leo. Whatever the normal tithe for a resident of the alleys is, I want to pay it."

Leo was quiet for a moment, then he nodded slowly. "If that's what you want. It won't be much, since you technically rent that apartment; the owner pays her own tithe on the property itself, so you'll only be paying an amenities-based tithe."

"That's fine," she said, smiling with satisfaction. She was doing well on her resolution to be more aware of the world around her.

"For someone who lives as dangerously as you do, you sure are a stickler for the rules you decide matter," Leo said, amusement clear in his voice.

"I don't _try_ to live dangerously," she protested.

"I'm sure you stumbled into that vampire hotel entirely by accident," Leo said, a bit sarcastically.

She gave a sheepish smile, knowing that he had not believed her lie, but also knowing he was essentially resigned to her peculiarities at this point. "Would you believe me if I said I had?"

"I would, actually," Leo snorted. Then he frowned. "Why did you stay at a hotel when you have an apartment just up the road?"

Harry's face went blank and she turned her face toward the puddle-strewn ground, picking up her pace. "It's complicated."

"I've been very reasonable," Leo told her, as though she didn't know. "You told me to stay away from your apartment and I have, even though I'm dying of curiosity."

"I appreciate that," she said, crinkling her eyes in his direction in a show of approval. "It must be so difficult for you, minding your own business and all."

Leo sighed. "One day, you will tell me all of your secrets."

"You have enough problems, Leo," she told him sternly. "I'm not going to add my trivial concerns to your already-heaping plate."

"If they're so trivial, they shouldn't cause me any trouble," Leo said archly.

"Good point," she said. "Oh, look, there's the Leaky. Bye, Leo." She hurried forward through the mounting rain toward the pub, waving cheerily over her shoulder as she made her escape.

"I will figure you out, Harry!" Leo called after her, seeming utterly unconcerned with how soaked he was getting just standing in the middle of the street like that.

She sincerely doubted it, but didn't say so aloud. Leo didn't respond docilely to challenges.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

That week saw an unexpected influx in mail at Potter Place. Looking through it, Harry noted with amusement that she had never received so many letters actually addressed to her. One was from Archie's friend Hermione, which she had mixed feelings about. Another was from Archie himself, which she expected, and the last…the last was postmarked from Hogwarts. She set that one aside with some trepidation to read last.

 _Dear Harry,_

 _How is your summer going? Have your started the summer assignments yet? It's a good idea to get started while the material from last term is still fresh. I've finished the prescribed work already, of course, but I have an ambitious outline of my own that I think will take me at least until July to complete._

 _My parents wanted me to tell you that you're welcome anytime you'd like to come over this summer. I don't know how busy you are with your independent studies, but if you have time perhaps we could meet up. I know your cousin will be gone on that internship you arranged for him most of the summer, so I thought you might be bored without anyone to spend time with. You don't have to let me meet your parents if you don't want to, but I promise I can keep your secret if you do. I really would love to meet them._

 _Hope your vacation is very relaxing,_

 _Your friend,_

 _Mione_

She sighed as she rolled up that letter. She would have to write to Archie and ask what he thought about the idea of her meeting up with Hermione over the break. She wasn't sure how well she could pretend to be Archie pretending to be her. She could do it for short amounts of time around Sirius when necessary, but Archie had said many times that Hermione was exceptionally clever. Could Harry really convince her that she was her friend? Maybe she could write pretending to be sick. It would buy her a little time to figure something out, at least.

She turned to the next letter, smiling as Archie's exuberant greeting fairly leapt off the page.

 _Salutations Cuz!_

 _The Darien Gap is everything I thought it would be—and so much more. The wizards here have contained themselves entirely from the Muggles around them. The jungle is so densely impenetrable that the wards around this place almost seem superfluous, but I suppose they've survived in such a dangerous clime by being careful. You wouldn't believe the security procedures we interns were subjected to upon arrival. They took blood work and everything! It makes sense, though—they have a real problem with the proliferation of disease here. Something about the warm air is especially conducive to incubating sickness._

 _I'm learning so much, Harry! The Healer I've been assigned to specializes in infectious disease prevention and containment. The villages in the Darien Gap are connected by way of magical transport, but essentially islands unto themselves. We got word yesterday that one of them not far from where our hospital is stationed has reported an outbreak. Since I'm interning with Healer Hern, I get to tag along with the team going out to investigate. Just think, my first quarantine!_

 _It's devilishly hot, and the mosquitos look like something left over from the pre-historic age, but I couldn't have picked a more interesting place to spend the summer. I hope you're doing well, and not getting into too much trouble. I know you'll probably go out and get involved in something right away, but for my sake at least try to relax while you have the chance._

 _Missing you—but not too much (on account of all the fun I'm having)._

 _-Archie_

Harry shook her head as she tucked the weather-beaten parchment away. Only Archie would think a quarantine was fun. She would have to add to her next letter to him a request that he please not catch any debilitating tropical disease, as that would rather put a damper on many of their future plans.

She fingered the third letter idly, aware that she had no other distraction to save her from whatever lay inside. Who at Hogwarts could be sending her a letter? She had a small, tentative hope that it was from Professor Snape, but she firmly told herself not to have such high expectations as she broke the seal. The chances that Snape would take Rigel's advice to contact Harry over the summer seriously were incredibly low.

As though to spite her realism, the handwriting revealed as she unrolled the letter was entirely familiar to her. It _was_ Master Snape's. Somewhat breathless with anticipation, she whipped the letter all the way open and began to read it quickly.

 _Miss Potter,_

 _It has come to my attention that, despite the promise of your recent contribution to the modus operandi of our field, there appears to be a shortage of brewers currently making use of the afore mentioned innovation. As I am presently between projects and have taken a passing interest in the burgeoning subject, it occurs to me that a demonstration of your technique would not go amiss._

 _I will be at the Potions Guild this Thursday morning at eight o'clock. If you are the dedicated brewer Mr. Black seems to think you are, come prepared to substantiate your methodology._

 _Potions Master Severus Snape_

She could not help but smile at the abrupt contextualization and equally brusque 'request.' She supposed it was his design to goad her, as that seemed to her to be her professor's preferred way of sounding people out. Little did he know she had been goaded by far more insulting people than him.

She wrote her reply on the back of his own letter—let him think she paid the matter scant attention if he read into it. She rather suspected he would secretly appreciate the economy, however.

 _Master Snape,_

 _Looking forward to Thursday._

 _-Harry Potter_

She chuckled for a moment, imagining her Head of House's utterly annoyed expression when he read the short missive. Serves him right for being so highhanded. As if it would somehow diminish her respect for him if he were to ask her for a demonstration of her technique. She was quite excited at the prospect. Other than Master Thompson, no one had yet requested a direct demonstration of Shaped Imbuing. Unless, she supposed, one counted Master Tallum approaching Archie about it. After hearing Nymphadora Tonks mention that the Unspeakables were still having trouble with the directions, she'd expected someone to contact her for clarification, but no one had. She supposed the organization was too proud to request assistance from a schoolgirl.

 _Their loss_ , she thought, shrugging. She began making plans for Thursday. She would have to use one of her old potions kits for their meeting; Snape was certain to recognize the one she used as Rigel, as he'd restocked it himself. She would have to make certain he didn't catch a glimpse of her wand, either, she thought with a grimace. Archie had taken his to America for his internship, obviously, but she assumed there would be no need for her to use a wand in any case. She was underage, and couldn't be expected to do wand magic outside of school, even were it somehow to come up when they would be studying a wandless brewing technique.

She would have to assess the Dominion Jewel's progress, however. She needed a layer of Occlumency that would stand up to Snape's casual perusal, and the more distinct it was from what Snape would recognize as 'Rigel's', the better. Rigel having taught her Occlumency would only be believable if she eventually learned to make the techniques her own, after all; he would expect Harry's shields to have evolved. Harry smiled to herself as she found a quiet spot for meditation. She was more than prepared to live up to Snape's expectations.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

The mountain was peaceful as she approached. Wildflowers were beginning to compete for space among the grass that covered its rocky precipices. She wondered, as she headed for the entrance to her lab, whether the jewel had been correct in assessing the snow and ice that used to dominate the landscape as manifestations of the repression and rejection of her magic. In retrospect, it certainly seemed anomalous for a fire core to have a snowy landscape. It was odd that she hadn't found it strange before. A symptom? Or just an accident?

The jewel, inhabiting its default form of the boy construct that looked somewhat like her Rigel persona, was sitting in a chair by the fireplace when she entered, staring into it quietly. She could almost imagine she had gone back in time to before the jewel was in her head at all, when the construct was just an incomplete project, a puppet on invisible strings.

Then the construct's head turned and it looked at her with too much intelligence for her to maintain the illusion. "You're just in time; I finished going through the last of them not long ago." It gestured to a pile of orbs sitting in the chair across from him. They were the memories she had deemed necessary for the jewel to view, a collection of critical moments spanning the past few years that would allow him to make informed decisions on her behalf.

She hadn't felt entirely comfortable leaving them with the jewel, but as the construct was forbidden from altering them or removing them from the mountain's protection, she had agreed. She certainly didn't have time to sit there and wait for the jewel to view them all in real time. From his words, it had taken him almost a week to get through them.

She gathered the orbs with a lasso of her will and corralled them along before her into the trapdoor and along the tunnels to her space room. Her magic greeted her with a flare of welcome as she entered, and she smiled at it warmly while she released the orbs in her possession back to their peaceful orbits around the room. She spent a few minutes standing close to her magic, her hands sunk up to her elbows in its heat. She didn't know how intelligent the force was, but she did her best to send feelings of gratitude and happiness its way, in case it was attuned to her emotions in the way she suspected; it had always responded to her anger and fear quickly enough, after all.

The sun spun a little faster on its access and expanded briefly to encompass her face and chest in light before retracting to its regular shape once more.

When she returned to the lab, the construct was pacing slowly before the fire. "I think I underestimated you," it said when she'd moved the rug over the trapdoor once more.

"Is that so?" Harry tilted her head.

"You—" The jewel broke off with a shake of its head and paced the length of the room once before stopping and turning to her sharply. "You have gone to—I would say— _unimaginable_ lengths for something that started out—and forgive me if I misinterpreted something—as a childish desire to be closer to your…idol."

"I think the memories may have oversimplified the situation," she said, frowning. "It was necessary for Archie and me to achieve our goals."

The construct shook its head on a laugh that came out somewhat hysterically. "Are you sure? Because it seems like you chose the most complicated, convoluted possible path to your goals simply because it was faster and you got to meet your childhood hero."

She winced. That assessment smarted a bit. "We didn't think it would be this complicated, when we started. I don't know if either of us really expected to get this far, but we have, and now it's…involved."

"Involved?" The jewel gave her an incredulous look. "It's so far beyond involved, now. What you have done is reckless, irreverent, foolhardy, treacherous, hazardous, and… _extraordinary_."

She blinked in surprise.

"Oh, and to think I assumed you were a goodie-goodie," the jewel cackled. "You have _ambition_ , girl, and I love it. Subtleties aren't usually my style, but this kind of elaborate scheme is so—so—what's the word? Satisfying? It's electrifying. I'm not even you and yet I feel so _alive_." The jewel favored her with a deep smirk. "I would not have guessed you had it in you, but you have been a very bad girl, Miss Potter."

"Don't call me that," she snapped, nose wrinkling. Why did he have to make her ruse sound so tawdry? It wasn't supposed to be epic or exciting. It was supposed to be secret. It was about learning and bettering themselves, not tricking people for fun.

"What? A bad girl?" The jewel leveled an assessing look at her. "Or Harry Potter? Perhaps you go by Rigel in your head, now?"

"Don't be ridiculous," she said, scowling. "I know who I am. I wear the mask, it does not wear me."

"You protest a lot," the jewel said, eyes narrowing. "Are you sure?"

"Positive," she said through gritted teeth.

"So you say," the construct said, shrugging. "How long can that last, though? Play a part long enough and it becomes part of who you are."

She lifted her chin defiantly. "That won't happen to me."

The jewel took up pacing once more, slowly and deliberately. "We shall see. For now, we must focus on re-raveling all the loose ends lying about. Have you considered giving up the game altogether? It's better to quit while you're ahead sometimes, you know."

She couldn't believe the power-hungry megalomaniac was telling her to back down. She crossed her arms and looked down at the ground to think carefully for a moment. After a few minutes, she shook her head. "We can't switch back now. It's too late. There's no way we could explain all the changes to the people on either end who know us. All my friends and professors would notice Archie wasn't me after the first week. All his, too, probably. They'd think we were imposters even when we technically weren't. It would be a mess. To switch back would take an entirely different pretense that, I think, would be more difficult to maintain than remaining where we are. We could pretend we suddenly hated all of our friends for no reason and ruin our reputations in the process of avoiding them, but frankly my friends at least are too stubborn for that to work. We could stage an elaborate accident in which we lost all our memories of the last four years, but there are too many elements that we'd be unable to control in that event—mind healers, concerned parents, the inexplicable fact that we lost the memories of our friends but retained all of our knowledge of spells and potions…it's too much."

The jewel nodded slowly. "That is true, it would be at least as much work to switch back. You wouldn't be breaking the law, though."

"Like you care about that," she scoffed.

"Just pointing it out," the construct said modestly. "It is my job to look out for your best interests, now."

She shook her head at him. "In any case, it's out of the question. Archie isn't far enough along his track yet. The point of his going to AIM is that he graduates at seventeen with a Healing license. If he transfers to Hogwarts now, he'll be unable to get his Healer's license until long after he finishes Hogwarts and completes a comparable training program. It would make everything we'd gone through thus far meaningless."

"You didn't mention yourself," the jewel said slyly. "You know you could walk away now and be better off. You've already got your idol's eye. Why press your luck?"

"I still have further to go," she said quietly. "Snape is going to teach me free-brewing this year—Rigel, not Harry Potter." Her desire to learn free-brewing was a slow-burning fire in her gut. "Maybe after this year I'll reevaluate, but for now…the ruse isn't in immediate danger. You're just not used to it yet, so it seems unthinkable. It's worked for years, though. There's no reason to back out when we've come this far."

"It might be that you're too used to it. I doubt this façade is as stable as you think." At her frown, the jewel shrugged. "I'm just a figment of your mind, now, what do I know? On the bright side, I know exactly what you need in the layers of your mind, now. I've begun work on your other mindscape. Would you like to see?"

She nodded. "Yes, please. As you no doubt deduced, this mountainscape will be Rigel's mind. It's the one Snape is familiar with, and he's the one we need to fool with our Occlumency shields, so it should remain unchanged on the surface as much as possible. The second one will be Harry's."

"Got it," the construct said, waving a hand unconcernedly. Its fingers moved into snapping position and, with a grin, it vanished the world around them in a blink.

When she oriented herself, she thought for a wild moment that the jewel had turned her mountain yellow. Then she realized she wasn't looking at a mountain at all. It was a pyramid. She whistled at the sheer scope of the behemoth that rose in perfectly placed stones before her. "You built this from scratch so quickly?"

"I have a wealth of experience in the building of pyramids," the jewel said, almost modestly. I wanted it to geometrically mirror the mountainscape, because you'll tell people that Rigel taught you Occlumency. Your shields will have a similar feel on a basic level, to those discerning enough to notice, but they will be distinct in every other way. The mountain is arable, so this layer is arid; the mountain is organic, so this layer is artificial. And so on."

"You just wanted to build a pyramid," she guessed.

"I really do enjoy building pyramids," the construct sighed. "Something about the perfectly symmetrical triangle reaching upwards toward the heavens is so...what's the word? Graceful. Illuminating. Majestic."

Ignoring his vocabulary issues, she surveyed the pyramid with its surrounding landscape of barren desert thoughtfully. There was an artificial wind that kicked up sand and made it difficult to see as she squinted toward the top of the pyramid. That was where the magic and orbs she used to project 'Harry's' aura should go. If she left them in the mountainscape while the pyramid was acting as the primary layer, her aura would be suppressed again.

"How do I move things from one landscape to the next?" she asked.

"Just will it so," the jewel said, as though it were obvious. She supposed it was.

A few moments' concentration, and the manifestations of her projected aura materialized before her. The downsized portion of magic that had decorated the mountain's peak appeared soon after. It was swift work to direct them to hover above the pyramid's apex like the great illuminati eye.

"Well done," she said to the construct, meaning it. The mindscape it had created was perfect for her needs. "Can you keep this layer primary until I tell you otherwise?"

"Of course," the construct smiled widely. "I still have much work to do, after all. This place is barely fit for pharaoh's cat at the moment; by the time I'm finished, it will put shame to Tutankhamun's puny resting ground."

"No slaves," she reminded it sternly.

"What about homunculi?" the jewel inquired.

"No." She shuddered.

"Golems, then," the construct suggested, eyes wide and pleading. She frowned at the construct, wondering why the expression looked so familiar. "I had this idea for an animated sphinx with rubies for eyes that is really going to set the tone for this mindscape." It furrowed its eyebrows and its lower lip began to tremble slightly as she watched.

"Gah—okay, just stop that right now," she said, turning her face away. It was like trying to say no to a kitten that had already been kicked.

"Useful, that," the jewel said, expression dissolving into its usual smug self-confidence. "I can see why you employ it despite its humiliating implications."

"No more memories for you," she grumbled. Just which one had he picked up the Look from, anyway? She thought she'd only given him relatively important ones.

"You're really a bore, sometimes," the construct complained. "Still, you'll change your mind eventually. I can be very useful, but only if I know you as well as you do."

"I'll pass, thanks," she said. "Good work on the pyramid, but let's stick to our respective roles for the time being."

The construct shrugged and turned away. With a click of its fingers, a clipboard appeared with what looked like extensive architectural plans affixed to its slate. "Run along and play pretend, then. I'll be here if you need someone to talk to."

 _Not likely_ , she thought irritably. As if the jewel could talk about 'playing pretend.' The hypocrite.

"I heard that," it sniffed.

Disturbed, she let her consciousness wander toward the mists. Despite her unease at how at home the jewel was making itself, she had other things to worry about at the moment.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

Thursday came quickly. She stepped jauntily through the Floo that morning, cheerfully weaving through the Leaky's breakfast crowd. She was early, as she wouldn't put it past Snape to come early himself and then scowl at her for arriving on time and making him wait. She was dressed in her smartest brewing robes, the sleeves of which tapered to her forearms, leaving her wrists and hands free. As she daren't wear Rigel's brewing gloves, her basilisk scale ring was absent, tucked into a pocket out of sight. Her hands felt a bit naked, but at least her meticulously trimmed nails would elicit no comment from the Potions master.

She moved through the crowd, waving absently to the shopkeepers she knew. As she passed the telescope shop, Harry caught sight of a little girl with a blue ribbon holding back her hair on the other side of the street. The girl smiled mischievously around the large basket of flowers she carried as she looked pointedly down toward Harry's feet. Harry slowed to follow her gaze and realized the young girl was laughing at her new boots. One of Leo's, then. Harry paused for a moment to cross to the girl's side of the alley with an answering grin.

"Do you like them?" she asked, waggling her eyebrows as she stuck one boot out in mock admiration.

"They're too shiny," the little girl giggled. Her ribbon swayed behind her as she shook her head back and forth.

"That's the waterproofing," Harry said, smiling sheepishly.

"It's not going to rain today," the girl said, blinking.

"How do you know?" Harry asked. The girl merely smiled again, this time secretively. Shrugging, Harry leaned in close. "You're going to tell Leo I'm in the alleys, right?"

The small girl nodded, eyes wide. "You want to surprise him?"

"Another time," Harry chuckled. "Today I'm not going to the lower alleys. I'm going to the Guild. Will you tell Leo not to wait around for me?"

The girl giggled again. "The King doesn't wait. I'll tell him, though, in case he decides to…" she scrunched up her face in thought. "…take a _rest_ nearby."

Harry grinned appreciatively. The girl was clever, for all that she looked about seven. "I appreciate it," she said. Taking a small coin from her pocket, she traded it for one of the girl's pink flowers. "See you."

"No. I'll see _you_." The little girl smiled, pretending to curtsey while really ducking down to tuck the coin into her shoe.

Harry rejoined the flow of traffic and was swept along Diagon until she reached the branch that would take her to Craftsman Alley and the Guild District. In no time she was slipping into the Potions Guild's front lobby. She glanced around to make sure Snape wasn't loitering somewhere inconspicuous before taking a seat on one of the benches pushed to the side of the entryway.

She was only there what felt like a moment when she heard Professor Snape's drawling annoyance echo through the lobby.

"—not going to entertain the notion," he was saying, somewhat sharply. She looked around and saw him coming not from the doors to the alley but from one of the corridors leading deeper into the Guild. He must have had another appointment before he was scheduled to meet with her. After a moment of thought Harry decided that made sense—he wouldn't go out of his way unnecessarily, after all.

Accompanying him was Edgar Whitaker, the handsome-faced, even-toothed Potions master who assisted the Aldermaster in representing the Guild to the public when necessary. Whitaker's tone was long-suffering, which told Harry he'd been dealing with Master Snape for longer than he was equipped to. "People are interested, Severus. They want to know the mind behind the most important breakthrough in the last decade. Just do a small exposé for the journal—we don't have to do it in your quarters at Hogwarts, if that makes you uncomfortable."

"You won't be doing it at all," Snape said, his tone brooking no further argument. "If people are interested, let them be interested in the work. That is all that matters. If you'll excuse me, Edgar, I have another appointment." As he said this, he spotted her sitting on the waiting bench and started her way.

Whitaker sighed, but looked as though he had not truly expected Snape to agree to whatever he was after. "Merlin save our public image from eremitic brewers," he muttered. After a single somewhat curious glance in Harry's direction, Whitaker took his leave and retreated back into the bowels of the Guild's offices.

"I have booked us a lab," Snape said shortly upon her rising from the bench.

"Lead the way," she said, stepping neatly into his shadow as he made for the stairs.

He walked quickly with a long stride, but she was used to it from school and had no trouble keeping up. They descended to the level where the Guild kept their labs and classrooms and Snape led her through the corridors unerringly. The lab he had reserved was small, but serviceable for their needs, with a selection of cauldrons standing ready on one of the workspaces.

Harry immediately chose one she liked the look of and began to inspect it automatically as she said, "Which part of the process specifically are you interested in?"

"The entirety," Snape said, crossing his arms in a stance that would have looked antagonistic if she hadn't known from her lessons with him at Hogwarts that it was simply the stance he took unconsciously when he had nothing to do with his hands.

She nodded, opening her potions kit and taking out what she needed to brew a simple Modified Weightless Draught. She assumed he would be interested in seeing something other than the Protection Potion, which had been carefully outlined in the article she wrote for the Guild. She had explained the Modified Weightless Draught briefly in the notes she'd given Snape as Rigel, but he wouldn't have seen the finished product unless he had paid very close attention at Draco's twelfth birthday party.

"Have you managed to replicate the Shaped Imbuing itself?" she asked.

She heard the sneer in Snape's voice as he informed her, "It was not so impenetrable as you seem to believe. I sought a demonstration merely to cement my own understanding of the process."

She smiled over her shoulder at him as she continued to prep her station. "I didn't think it would trouble you much—Rigel says you are prodigious at wandless magic. I only ask because I think you may be the first to successfully duplicate it." Snape raised his eyebrows at her in patent disbelief. She caught it as she glanced back at him again and had to smile. "I know; it seems incredible to me, but apparently the Unspeakables have had a great deal of trouble mastering the process in any meaningful sense. I suppose they must be approaching it from the wrong angle."

Snape didn't comment, so she focused her attention on beginning the base. Immediately, she realized a flaw in her plan. She needed to light the fire, but could not use her Holly wand for obvious reasons, and she had long since ceased carrying the little fire-starter kit she'd used before mastering the spell.

"Would you mind lighting the flame?" she asked, grimacing a bit sheepishly.

Snape looked unimpressed, but pulled out his wand and flicked it at the base of the cauldron nevertheless. "When you brew at home do you require your relatives to light your fires, Miss Potter?" he asked, openly mocking.

"Sure," she said, blinking innocently. As though she would admit to performing underage magic in front of a Hogwarts professor without qualm. That said, there was no point being excessively convincing—Snape knew very well that the law against unsupervised minors using magic was inconsistently obeyed at best.

"You must keep them very busy," Snape said idly. She was immediately on guard—Severus Snape did not make idle conversation. "How often do you brew at home?"

"Quite often," she said, not looking up from her cutting board.

"I suppose it must be difficult, keeping up with all those orders," Snape commented.

She wasn't sure what he was talking about, but she played along. "The DMLE has only ordered two batches of my Protection Potion thus far. I wouldn't call the volume demanding." They seemed to be doling them out very judiciously in training their recruits to work with them. She had handed over the second crate only the day before.

Snape was silent for a moment. "The Ministry wastes little time in finding brutish uses for otherwise academic achievements." She couldn't judge what emotion had prompted such a remark, but she allowed that he would have more experience than she did, despite not knowing how anyone could find a brutish use for a _shield_. She certainly hoped the Ministry would use her invention in the spirit it had been intended, but she accepted that she had no say over what people did with her potions once they had them. There would always be irresponsible people in the world. "In any event, those were not the orders I referred to."

She glanced his way with a confused frown to prompt an explanation.

"Rumor has it you brew for Burke in your free time," Snape said, eyes assessing as she went still in surprise.

"No such rumor exists," she said, absolutely certain of that much. Even Burke didn't know she brewed for him. He was aware only that he bought from a brewer of Krait's. "Where did you hear that?"

He appeared momentarily amused. She would not have caught it if she were not familiar with his frequently minute expressions. "Do you deny it?"

"Why should I? You've given me no reason to think this 'rumor' credible enough to deserve refutation," Harry said flatly. She didn't know when it had become vogue for people she knew as Rigel to corner her as Harry but she was getting a little sick of it.

"Aldermaster Hurst relayed this fact," Snape said, no longer amused. "Will you denounce him as a liar?"

She pressed her lips together, a bit annoyed with Leo's father. She was certain he would not have said anything if he didn't think it in her best interest, but when other people made decisions about what was best for her without fully comprehending the complexities of her life it always turned out poorly. "Aldermaster Hurst was no doubt attempting to convince you of my suitability as a brewer. If you have been convinced of that already, what purpose does digging into it further serve?"

Snape's face twisted in a scowl as he demanded, "Did you put him up to that little speech, then?"

She shook her head with a slight smile. So she'd been right. "He would reveal details about my private business for no other reason."

"You admit it, then," Snape pressed.

She set down her knife and turned fully to face the Potions master. "I do. What import is it to you?"

"How did you convince him to distribute the potions of a child?" Snape asked. She didn't sense any derision when he said 'child.' He seemed to be simply interested in how the circumstances had arisen.

"He likes my Blood-Replenisher," she said, supposing it wouldn't matter if she told him that much. "After that one sold well, he began ordering a few others through me as well."

"You speak as though you have a prolonged business relationship with Burke, and yet he was surprised to learn your last name," Snape said, eyes glittering.

She grimaced unhappily. That wasn't good. "What did you do?"

"You will address me with respect—"

"What did you do, _Sir?_ " If he had talked to Burke for any amount of time he had likely both informed Burke that Harriett Potter was brewing for him _and_ found out about the brewing she did for Krait.

"I merely followed up on a lead," Snape said silkily. "And what a convoluted coil it turned out to be. Horace Burke was adamant that the only brewer named Harry on his staff was a gutter rat who worked primarily for an apothecary in Knockturn Alley. The Serpent's Storeroom, was it?"

He knew everything, then. Sometimes she could wish a little less of Snape's research-oriented academic drive bled over into his personality. After a moment of gathering her wits, she stuck out her chin defiantly and said, "It isn't illegal."

"I didn't say it was," Snape said.

"What are you saying, Master Snape?" she asked. "Why does the brewing I do in my free time interest you so much?"

"I simply wonder how you find the time for such things around your schooling—and why you bother, for that matter," the older wizard said, looking down at her defensive expression with disinterest that she could tell was affected.

She favored him with a look that was equal parts incredulous and questioning of his faculties. "I do it because I like to brew potions." She made sure to say it as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. She wanted him to believe her sole motivation and interest in distributing lay in her passion for the field.

His eyes did seem to soften minutely at that. His expression remained coldly blank, however, as he switched tactics. "I take it your parents aren't aware of your activities? Knockturn Alley can be a dangerous place."

"Maybe for some. I've never found it so," she said, preferring not to answer the previous question.

"Then you are a fool," Snape sneered.

"You may well think so," she said, turning slowly back to the workspace. Her knife didn't shake in her hand and she diced her root with an aplomb that would have made Narcissa Malfoy green with envy.

After a few moments of her silent cutting, Snape asked, "Aren't you going to beg me not to apprise your parents of your enterprises?"

"I wasn't aware you spend so much time with my parents that the subject is likely to come up," she shot back. After a pause, she regained her temper and added, more evenly, "You don't seem the type to go out of your way to distribute information for free, but if that is not the case, please do keep it to yourself."

She heard him snort and relaxed slightly. Amused was good. "You are as impudent as Rigel," the Potions master groused.

"Didn't he tell you I would be?" she asked, allowing her own amusement at the comparison to leak into her voice.

A few minutes later, she set aside her knife and said, "That's the prep. The brewing isn't any different from the regular Weightless Draught, so don't watch the cauldron. Watch the magic that goes into it."

"You'll be imbuing while you brew?" Snape clarified, moving closer.

"It's more efficient," she said, nodding. "I've done this one many times, so brewing it doesn't take away from the concentration I need to Shaped Imbue." She hesitated for a moment, then said, "The last time I demonstrated this, when I first showed Master Thompson last summer, I had him project his magical consciousness to my core so that he could see the magic being shaped. Since then, I've devised a better method, however." She pulled out a rolled-up piece of parchment from her pocket and handed it to Snape. "These are the instructions for a runic ward that will temporarily make magic used in this room visibly intelligible. Can you cast it?"

Constructing a ward was a great deal more complicated than simply allowing him to view the process from the vantage point of her core would be, but Snape had seen Rigel's core too many times not to be suspicious about Harry having a core that looked essentially identical.

"Roundabout," he commented, nonetheless unrolling the parchment and scanning it.

"Thorough," she disagreed, topping it with a guileless smile when he glanced at her sardonically. "You want to view the process as objectively as possible, right, Professor?"

He frowned deeply at her and she flushed slightly as she realized her mistake. "Professor?" he repeated, slightly foreboding.

"That's what Rigel calls you," she said, biting her lip in a show of chagrin. "Sorry, Master Snape."

"Sir will do," he said shortly. He rolled the parchment back up, saying, "I am familiar with this ward. Do not proceed until it is completed."

She nodded her agreement, adding, "Yes, Sir," for good measure. He set about defining the ward's perimeter as she watched. He used a wandless version of the Point-Me Charm to determine true north, then established the first of the grounding runes at the eastern cardinal point. South was next, and so on clockwise until the diamond was complete. Once the ward was grounded, Snape began adding the secondary runes, which—contrary to their unimportant-sounding categorization—would be the runes specific to the effect of the ward on that which was within it—or without it, depending on the direction in which the runes were drawn, of course.

It was interesting to see someone casting a runic ward in an everyday context. It was a rarely used skill, which she suspected was because it took longer and used more magic than a spell did. Harry thought the runes' advantage of increased complexity was lost on too many modern witches and wizards. She had to admit to a feeling of intense, but mercifully brief, claustrophobia when the ward snapped into place around them, however. The last time she'd been trapped in a runic ward…

She shook herself mentally. This was different. She trusted Professor Snape; also, this ward wasn't designed to prevent anything from moving in or out of it. Her trepidation was irrational, and as such she brushed it away after a short internal struggle.

"It's done," Snape said when he had finished. To demonstrate, he cast a Levitation Charm on an empty beaker. The ward hummed audibly as it detected magic and then Harry could see the stream of magic that connected the beaker to Snape's wand. It was like watching ink released into a bowl of water, but instead of eventually spreading out until it dissipated, the magic retained its curling, blooming form even as it pulsed, expanding and contracting almost rhythmically between the wand and the object upon which the charm had been cast.

She had to smile watching the magic at work. It was one thing to feel magic within oneself—seeing another use it made her appreciate for a single instant the connection that ran between all witches and wizards. It was truly a remarkable gift. When Snape ended the charm and the beaker settled back onto the workspace, the magic lost its structure, loose as it was, and faded to indistinguishability in the air around them.

Taking that as her cue, Harry began to add ingredients to the cauldron one at a time, layering and stirring as was appropriate. It didn't take long to get into the rhythm, even with the distracting multicolored whirlpool of magic occurring before her eyes as the ingredients in her potion began to interact with one another, transforming their latent magic into active effects. She thought she might have to brew under a ward like this more often—it was fascinating to _see_ the interactions she knew intellectually had always been taking place. She'd only went to the trouble of finding such a ward so that she wouldn't have to let Snape directly view her core, but now she was imagining other uses for it…

With a mental jolt, she realized she hadn't been imbuing as she said she would, and Snape was giving her an impatient look. Smiling apologetically at him, she put her hands on autopilot and turned her attention inwards. She drew easily on her core, shaping the magic as she did so within herself, not letting it manifest physically. It was like drawing a butterfly out of her stomach but keeping it tightly contained and transferring it to a new cage before it could fly away. Except in this analogy she didn't have hands to keep the butterfly in her grasp and instead relied on containing the magic with her own will.

She watched interestedly as the magic in her core burned into visibility as she activated it. Thanks to the ward, she could see the general sphere of her core's magic through her own body, though the details of her core's primary and secondary layers remained blurred. She monitored the magic from the outside even while guiding it internally in filling the pattern for the Hover Charm. Once the magic had a solid shape, it left her core and traveled in an orange globe from her gut to her hand and along the stirring rod to the potion itself. By the time the charm had been fully shaped and imbued, she was finished with the base potion as well. She set the stirring rod aside and extinguished the flame beneath her cauldron by blowing on it sharply.

"There," she said, turning to see if Snape had any questions. "It's really the same as conscious imbuing, only you shape the magic in your core before you release it. That's why it gets imbued as a contained unit like that, instead of as a raw, continuous stream. Really it's just a way to move the stage where the magic gets shaped closer to the beginning of the process, to allow greater complexity. I like to think of it as the difference between selling ingredients and selling a potion."

Snape inclined his head slowly. "It seems very much as you described it in your original paper. I believe many may be deceived by the simplicity of the concept; no doubt when they attempt it themselves, they realize their control is not at the level required to replicate your results."

She had been worrying about that herself. She knew her control was unusual. Her strong will had been developed by necessity due to the extenuating circumstances of her magic's growth. Still… "Do you think it's going to be impossible for this technique to ever be something most professional brewers can learn? Is it going to be an esoteric branch that scant few masters even attempt? Like free-brewing?"

"It is a strong possibility," Snape said, pressing his lips together in annoyance. "This discovery, while extraordinary, will ultimately only expand the field in proportion to the number of wizards capable of utilizing it. As of right now, there are only a handful in England I would even credit with the potential."

Even hearing Master Snape call her work extraordinary didn't diminish the pang she felt as he confirmed what she'd started to suspect. Hers would never be a mainstream technique unless serious training was put toward developing brewers' wandless control. "Maybe if we started younger," she said tentatively. "If brewers were taught at once to harness wandless magic and work toward superior control…"

"It would take a revolution in the potions community," Snape said, almost regretfully. "Unless you can demonstrate that the things Shaped Imbuing can achieve are unarguably beyond what current techniques allow, it will fall under the heading of things only the most dedicated of masters bother studying."

"Like Indirect Stirring," she said, a bit morose.

Snape looked sharply at her. "Rigel taught you that as well."

She nodded, still preoccupied about the fate of the discovery she'd put so much effort into. "I'll just have to make Shaped Imbuing the only thing anyone is talking about in the potions community," she said determinedly. "It is important, and I'll make everyone see that."

When Snape spoke, there was something like a smile in his words. "You won't have to do it alone, Miss Potter." When she glanced up at him in surprise, he smirked somewhat disingenuously. "I am between projects, as I believe I mentioned. This new field of experimentation is cutting edge and infinitely versatile, it would appear. I am certain a concentrated effort to expand its applications will prove sufficiently stimulating."

She fairly beamed at him. "I'll get to work, as well. I have tons of ideas for spells whose effects would be incredibly useful if prolonged. I also want to figure out how to make a potion magnify a spell's power instead of muting it—"

"All worthy ambitions," Snape cut in smoothly. "It does not do to rush such experimentation, however. It must be pursued deliberately."

"Of course," Harry said, nodding excitedly nonetheless. She hesitated, then offered, somewhat tentatively, "We could brainstorm ideas to pursue, then collaborate on who would experiment with which leads. I don't have much experience designing recipes from scratch, so it might be a good idea for you to start developing a base that will have an exponential effect on the imbued magic while I take the lead on some of the more magically intensive spells that could be—"

"Stop," Snape said sharply. She fell silent, not at all offended. She was getting carried away, she knew, but she was so excited to be working with Master Snape as _herself_ on a project _she'd_ proposed. "What did you just say?"

Her mind went blank for a moment as she rewound her thought process. What had she been saying? "About the amplifying base?" she hazarded. She supposed she hadn't explained the idea very thoroughly.

"No," Snape said. He was looking at her suspiciously, she realized, and she had to forcibly reel herself back from her excitement to take stock of the expression on his face. "You intimated that it would make the most sense for you to handle the more magically draining portions of the task." Her face drained of color as dread stole over her. Had she said that? Was she really so foolish? Snape's eyes darkened further in displeasure as he saw her poorly masked panic. "When last we met you revealed you haven't enough magic to manage more than one Shaped-Imbued potion at a time. Your aura collaborated this. Why would you assume that the magical demands would fall to you?"

She smiled in embarrassed self-deprecation. "I wasn't thinking. You're right, of course. I'll leave that to you, then—"

"It was not unthinking," he snapped, expression forbidding. "It was automatic—you took such a partition of labor for granted. _Why?_ " 

"I just thought to spare you the draining work," she said, fumbling a bit for a quick answer. "I mean, because I'm underage, so I can't use wand magic anyway over the summer. It makes sense for me to waste my magic in experimentation instead of you."

"You are lying," Snape growled, drawing himself up to his full height in an effort to intimidate her. "Do not do it again. Why did you say that? Is someone else perhaps donating the magic your experimentations require? If I find that you have taken advantage of my student in such a way—"

"No!" she said, a bit disgruntled that this was the conclusion he'd arrived at. She appreciated his protective stance as Rigel, but she didn't like how little he thought of her as Harry. "That's not it. Rigel isn't even here this summer—he's in South America. Anyway, I wouldn't do that to him. I respect my cousin too much to use him like a magic dispenser."

Snape seemed to decide she was telling the truth about that, at least. "My apologies," he said, somewhat gruffly. She was surprised at the admission, but supposed he acknowledged that, since she wasn't one of his students, he should be civil.

"That's all right," she said. She offered a small smile. "Rigel says he always argues with you when you jump to conclusions. I won't take it personally."

Snape clenched his teeth on a scowl. "Rigel says entirely too much."

"To me, maybe," she said agreeably. "He doesn't mean it in a critical way," she added, making sure Snape knew she wasn't being intentionally rude. "He thinks your mind works much faster than most people's, so you reach the end of your train of thought before the conductor has time to change the tracks."

The Potions master grimaced. "You have not answered my question," he reminded her after a moment's pause.

She thought for a moment, no idea what she ought to say. He had told her not to lie again, but she was fairly sure that if she marshaled her skills in a calm manner she could fool him. She just had to come up with something believable. She had barely smoothed her face in preparation for a lie when his expression abruptly changed. His eyes sharpened and narrowed as they roved over her form—no, she realized after a confused second, he wasn't looking at her. He was looking _around_ her. He was reading her aura.

She stiffened and opened her mouth to say something—anything to distract him from whatever he was seeing—but he beat her to it. "Your magic levels are not depleted."

She blinked. She swallowed. "I've been working on strengthening my magic. One Shaped Imbuing doesn't tire me as much as it used to."

"You misunderstand me," Snape said silkily. "I meant your levels have not dropped at all since I scanned your aura in the lobby, despite imbuing a heavy amount of magic into the potion."

"That's impossible," she scoffed. "You must have misread it—why were you reading it anyway? You looked at it over New Year's, didn't you? It hasn't changed."

Her comment was meant to put him on the defensive, but he turned it back on her with a sharp smirk. "Exactly, Miss Potter. It hasn't changed at all." She cursed his observant nature and her own stupidity. How had she stumbled into this pit of her own making? Projecting an aura was supposed to make him less suspicious of her, not more. Why hadn't she realized that an aura that never changed no matter how much magic she used was just as suspicious as not having one?

She attempted to shrug lightly. "That is odd. Maybe my aura is broken."

"Not broken," Snape said slowly. He had an expression of dawning certainty that she didn't like. "Artificial. You're projecting a false aura; it does not reflect the true depth of your core."

She was silent for a moment, then said, a bit defiantly, "So what? It's not a crime."

"It is in some countries," Snape said sardonically. He looked much more relaxed now that he'd figured her out. His expression settled back from its hyper-interested focus into the aloof picture of reserved judgment he preferred as his default mode. "Did you really think you could hide such a thing?"

"No one else seems to have noticed," she said, more than a little annoyed at herself.

"The vast majority of the world is composed of fools," Snape said, a dismissive note in his voice. "Tell me why you misrepresent your magic. I can deduce from your earlier comments that you have a great deal more magic than you let on. For what purpose do you conceal it?"

"That's not really your business, Sir," she said. She comforted herself that, even though he knew her aura was fake, he still didn't know how much magic she had. He didn't have a good reason to assume she was Rigel Black. Lots of people had above-average magic.

"Then I shall take my business elsewhere," Snape said quietly. It was a threat to refuse to help her with her Shaped Imbuing project, she knew. What she didn't know was whether he was bluffing or whether he would go through with it if she refused to answer his questions. She could do the experimentation on her own, but…why should she, when all he wanted was an answer? It didn't have to be a _true_ one, after all.

She smiled in a defeated way. "All right, but keep it to yourself, all right? It makes me nervous that you've discovered so many of my secrets in such a short period of time." Snape merely raised his eyebrows expectantly. Taking a breath, she said, begrudgingly, "I don't want to be treated differently because of my magic. People expect things from you when you have magic. It's dangerous."

Snape looked supremely irked. "You sound like my foolish apprentice. Did he sell you on this idea?"

"I agree with him," she said easily. "Rigel would know, after all. People started treating him differently when his magic got powerful."

"Rigel is going to be the lord of a very influential family one day. There are many reasons for the way people treat him, not all of them related to his magic," Snape snapped.

"It doesn't help his anonymity from certain groups, though, does it?" she pointed out.

"Your situation is different," Snape sneered. "Do you really think the SOW Party is going to come headhunting _you?_ "

"They came for _you_ ," she shot back, eyes flashing behind her glasses. "The SOW Party is consistently inconsistent in their supposedly vaunted 'pureblood values' when it comes to people with great talent or great power."

"That is changing," Snape said in a low voice. He seemed contemplative for a moment, then jerked his head as though dismissing a stray thought impatiently. "Your pretense is unnecessary and foolhardy. Dissembling ineffectually will only draw more attention to you."

"I'll try harder in future," she said, smiling sweetly. At his continued scowl, she added, more seriously, "There's nothing wrong with being underestimated. I appreciate the element of surprise it gives me."

"It only makes people undervalue you," Snape argued, scowling. "That is not an advantage if you plan on getting ahead in our field."

"I think my work speaks for itself," she said staunchly.

"Then you are an idiot," the man snarled. He took a deep breath and reined his temper. "If I may be frank, you need every advantage you can take, Miss Potter. The English Potions community are not friendly to new ideas, especially when they come from young women who were educated out of the country. Power, however, talks to people louder than ideas do."

"That's not how things should be," she said, frowning deeply. "I don't want people to listen to me just because I have strong magic."

"But you _do_ want them to listen to you," Snape said shrewdly.

She took a deep breath, thinking. "I'll take your words under advisement. Thank you, Prof—Master Snape," she corrected herself quickly. Why was it so difficult to stay in character around Professor Snape? She had never known herself to be particularly relaxed around him at school. Was it just that she took their relationship for granted? Was it the kinship she felt for a fellow brewer? The privilege and pride she felt at having his interest in her project? She didn't know, but she did know she couldn't keep slipping up around the man. She would have to continue their professional association primarily through correspondence, she thought, to have any chance of fooling him indefinitely.

Snape eyed her, assessing the resolve in her face for a moment, then nodded shortly. "See that you do. I will contact you when I have decided on a preliminary research plan regarding your Shaped Imbuing technique."

"Thank you," she said, meaning it despite all the things that had gone wrong that day. This was what she wanted above all, so she would just have to get better at covering her tracks. She could learn a lot from her failures. She was fortunate that Snape had no larger agenda beyond potions brewing that might spur him to dig deeper in her life. The next person she slipped up in front of might not let her off so easy. "I'll clean up here," she offered, eager to get some time to think it all through more carefully. She had to figure out a way to adjust her aura according to the magic she used, or else just never use magic around people who could read her aura again.

Snape inclined his head once more and took his leave. She cleared the space and packed up her things slowly, ideas and their implications swimming circles around her mind. Everything was growing more complicated, she acknowledged. Every step forward on the path they wanted to take brought more problems. They were getting increasingly creative at coming up with solutions, though. She felt a small bit of satisfaction at that. All the hurdles they jumped only made them stronger. Every boulder they dodged made them faster. When they finally reached the top of the mountain, no one would _ever_ be able to knock them back to the bottom.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

Not two days after her demonstration with Professor Snape, Harry received a letter pertaining to their meeting—only it wasn't from Snape. It was from Caelum Lestrange.

 _Halfblood,_

 _My former mentor, Master Whitaker, who is to take me on his incredibly progressive research trip to Chile in a few short weeks, informs me you were seen at the Guild this week with Master Snape. What are you up to, brat? I told you I wouldn't stand to be kept out of the loop on your ridiculously unintuitive experiments. If you're collaborating with a senior master, I have a right to know. Is he looking into your research? I can't imagine what he'd want with some upstart's farfetched brewing fantasies, but I suppose it is to Master Snape's credit that he pursues every avenue of study, no matter how occult and unsubstantiated._

 _I haven't forgotten your atrocious behavior at the gala, but I understand it must be difficult for a halfblood like you to try and ape its betters, so I've magnanimously decided to overlook it. I've no interest in holding my breath waiting for a heathen to become civilized—I'd sooner have luck training a pack of grindylows to fly south for the winter. You can, however, make amends by telling me just what you've been getting up to that has a master like Snape giving you the time of day._

 _I'm not writing this for my health, Potter. Hurry up with a reply._

 _-C. Lestrange_

She rolled her eyes at the intense combination of elite snobbery and the most common kind of rudeness that Lestrange always exhibited. Taking out her quill, she penned a swift reply.

 _Lestrange,_

 _If you're so interested, come and find out. Let's have lunch in the alleys._

 _Harry_

Later that afternoon, she was coming in from a long run when an owl accosted her at her front door. It looked like one of the fast, expensive breeds, and she wondered if Lestrange had actually expedited his reply to her in his impatience. She wouldn't put it past him. The owl pecked at her sweaty hair impatiently as she untied the parchment so she scowled at it and said sternly, "Hold on, will you?" The owl glared back. No doubt Lestrange had sent her the most unpleasant bird he could find.

She jogged wearily into her house and up to her room, the owl following at an antagonizingly close distance. She read the reply quickly—it was fairly short.

 _Potter,_

 _I am coming to press you for professional information and there will be no lunch eating._

 _-C. Lestrange_

She snorted. So typical of the crass boy. The owl hooted at her in a harrying way, so she scratched out her reply and sent it on its way—without a treat, because she didn't feel there was any merit in rewarding poor behavior. In owls, at least. Why she was humoring Lestrange, she didn't know.

 _Lestrange,_

 _We can meet tomorrow, noon, at Sardino's Place on Aroma Alley. They have excellent pasta. If you don't remember how to get there, meet me at the Leaky._

 _-Harry_

His reply came even faster this time, and she wondered if the last owl had been kept waiting while she was on her run. She'd only been gone an hour, but it might have had spectacularly bad timing.

 _Potter,_

 _I am not being seen in some run-down mum-and-pop-shop in the middle of the day. It's bad enough I'm being seen with you. We will meet at one o'clock to miss the lunch crowd at La Serene. If you don't know where that is,_ _you_ _can meet_ _me_ _at the Leaky. Since you're so keen to force your company on me, you can pick up the bill, as well._

 _-C. Lestrange_

She sighed. Of course he would pick the most expensive restaurant on Diagon and then invite her to foot the cost. He was such a pain. She supposed she ought to have seen that coming, though. It wasn't as though she didn't have a good idea of Lestrange's character by now.

She penned a reply agreeing to his terms, then sent the owl off with mixed feelings. It was a good thing she was doing, she told herself. Lestrange needed friends his own age who didn't toady to him. Or at least he needed a metaphorical kick in the pants. She could provide both. It was practically a public service.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

It was too nice a day to spend indoors, and Harry hoped as she made her way through Diagon that Caelum wasn't one of those people who refused to sit on a terrace. The restaurant he'd picked was located on the main strip, which meant reservations in the evening when the crowds thinned and the alley lights turned on were impossible to procure. On a weekday for lunch she suspected it would be crowded, but not prohibitively so. There weren't as many influential people in the alleys to be seen by during the day, so, excepting those on working lunches with their clients, La Serene generally took walk-in patrons. Provided they adhered to the dress code, of course.

As such, she had ditched her usual brewing robes and donned lightweight robes of pale green that, while feminine in cut, were not overtly so. Still, she felt a bit out of place as she stepped under the blue and white awning and greeted the hostess. "I don't have a reservation," she said, "But I'm meeting my friend here."

"Are you Miss Potter?" the hostess asked, checking her list with a cheery smile. "Mr. Lestrange is already waiting inside."

Of course he was. She followed the dimpled girl to the back of the restaurant where Caelum sat in what looked like the booth farthest from the windows. He had a bottle of wine already on the table and appeared to be halfway through it. With a mental sigh, she thanked her good sense for bringing more gold than she'd thought she would need. Lestrange was such a prat.

As she sat and the hostess left, Harry gestured to the wine with raised eyebrows. "I'm pretty sure I'm not allowed to pay for alcohol until I'm of age, even if it's for you to drink."

"They don't ask those sorts of questions here," the raven-haired boy assured her blithely.

"Great," she said, giving a smile so fake even he couldn't fail to notice.

"Don't be such a sour sugar quill," Caelum admonished. He nudged the menu over to her side of the table with a negligent flick of his hand. "Here, look it over. I've been here so many times I have it memorized."

She fought an eye roll and opened the folded menu, holding it up so that she didn't have to look at the blue-eyed boy's smug expression for a moment. It was all in French, she realized with surprise. Were they so eager to seem classy that they couldn't stoop to English translations?

"I can order for you, if you like," Lestrange said, his tone sickly sweet in its condescension.

"That won't be necessary," Harry assured him. Even if she didn't speak French, she'd rather pick something at random than let him pick for her. He'd probably order her raw snails just to be a disagreeable ass.

The waiter—or maître de, she supposed, judging by how much fancier his uniform was than the other wait staff—appeared almost out of thin air when she set the menu aside. "Good afternoon, Mademoiselle." He bowed to her much too deeply. "Are you satisfied with the fairy wine, Monsieur Lestrange?"

"Excellent as always, Andre," Caelum said with a kind of haughty graciousness.

"Shall I bring a glass for the lady?" Andre asked with an ingratiating smile.

"I'm underage," Harry said, smiling back just as saccharinely. "Thanks, though. I'll take a water."

The waiter nodded a bit uncertainly while Lestrange rolled his eyes at her. "You are such a plebian, Potter."

"Guilty." She shrugged. "Would you like to order first?"

Lestrange sneered at her, but turned to Andre nevertheless and rattled off an order that, to her admittedly inexperienced ears, sounded uncomfortably rehearsed. She began to suspect that Caelum didn't actually speak French and only knew how to order his favorite dishes. Amused, she decided to test the theory. Turning to the waiter, she said, in perfectly accented French, " _I'll start with the Tartelette de Chèvre Frais, followed by the Carre d'Agneau, but with the white wine sauce on the side if you don't mind."_

"Excellent choice, Mademoiselle," Andre said, looking incredibly pleased as he jotted down the modification.

" _One more thing,"_ she added, smiling at Lestrange's annoyed expression. " _If my companion orders another bottle of wine will you please pour half of it out and water the rest down before serving it? I suspect he will be a tedious drunk. Don't worry about irritating him—he won't even notice, and I'll pay for the whole bottle regardless._ "

The waiter looked unsurely between her and Caelum, but when it became clear the other boy didn't understand her, said, also in French, " _Yes, Madam. That is no problem. What shall we do with the wine we remove?_ "

" _Sell it by the glass_." She shrugged.

Andre smiled again, then bowed himself back to the kitchen to place the order.

"Since when do you speak French?" Lestrange scowled, eyeing her suspiciously.

"A house-elf taught me," she said, knowing full well he'd never believe her.

"Get real, Potter." Lestrange swirled his wine for a moment, then his curiosity got the better of him. "What were you saying to Andre?"

"I told him it was your birthday," Harry said, blinking innocently. "I asked if he could bring a cake with fourteen candles and he said he could get the wait staff to sing for you as well."

Lestrange spluttered. "Fourteen?! That's not funny! You'd better not have."

"What will you do if I did?" she asked, smiling at his disgusted expression. "You can't get up and storm out—that is, if you want to be welcomed back to this establishment. By how quickly you ordered your fish I'm guessing you like this place a lot."

"Well, I'm not going to sit here and be humiliated," Caelum spat.

"Aren't you, though?" she said, letting her smile devolve into a smirk.

He opened his mouth, then eyed her smug expression and closed it. "You didn't order a cake."

"Of course I didn't," she laughed. "You're so naïve sometimes, Caelum."

" _I'm_ naïve?" he sputtered again. "You're ridiculous."

"I'm fun," she corrected him. "Maybe you've heard of it."

"Why did I agree to this, again?" Caelum slumped back into his seat, taking a long swig of his wine in an attitude that was decidedly pouty.

"Free food," she suggested. Leaning forward with an enticing smile, she added, "Free information."

"Oh, that's right," he said, sniffing. He set his glass down and leaned in himself. "Spill your guts, then; what's going on with your research? And don't give me some vague shit about experimentation or exploring your options—I want to know what Master Snape is doing with your work."

"He wrote and asked for a demonstration of the technique, to make sure he was replicating it correctly," Harry said honestly.

"He's managed to replicate it?" Lestrange looked quite surprised. "No one else has."

"Where'd you hear that?" she asked, tilting her head a little.

"I have my sources," Lestrange said haughtily. She stared at him, going over what she knew about his family tree in her head. There weren't any other Lestranges in the potions community that she knew of. She supposed Whitaker might have told him, but then she remembered something Edmund Rookwood had mentioned once.

"Your godfather told you," she said, grinning at his surprised expression. "Augustus Rookwood is an Unspeakable, isn't that right? They're still having trouble modifying my methods, are they?"

"How did you guess that?" Caelum scowled. "You know far too much for a halfblood."

"I have my sources," she said, entirely mocking.

"Fine. Yes, my godfather asked if I had any insight into the process, seeing as I interned with you at the Guild while you were inventing it. I told him it probably wasn't as complicated as it seemed—I mean, _you_ came up with it," he said, as though the very idea were nonsensical.

"That's just sad," she said, shaking her head. "I gave them very detailed directions. And samples. They're probably just sitting around complaining about how impossible the concept is instead of _trying_." She supposed they must recruit more for brains and theoretical research ability than magical control.

Caelum eyed her oddly over his glass—which he had just refilled for what she guessed was the fourth time. Didn't he have any concept of pacing? "Potter, I hate to say this—seriously, I loathe myself for even thinking it—but your new technique is impossible. I don't know how you came up with it or how Snape managed to replicate it because it _makes no fucking sense._ "

She raised her eyebrows, taken aback by his sudden fervor. "It's new, not impossible," she argued. "Of course it's difficult; if it was easy, someone would have discovered it long before I did."

"Because you're the next coming of Merlin," Lestrange muttered, lip curled bitterly.

"I just have good control over my magic," she explained patiently. "That's all the technique requires: exceptionally good control."

"Not hard to control a half-dead pixie," Caelum said snidely.

"You're right," she said, irony playing in her mind. "I guess the Unspeakables have so much magic they can't exercise the necessary control over it. I wonder how Snape managed to make it work? Do you think he's a Squib, too?"

"Snape is a genius," Lestrange scoffed. "The fact that he even got your stupid halfblood idea to work is a reflection on him, not you or your technique."

"If you say so," she said. She might have continued arguing, but Andre was back with a basket of bread and a rosemary oil for dipping.

"Compliments of the house," the waiter said, depositing the items with a flourish.

"Grand," Caelum said, smiling in a way that was horribly unconvincing. Had he practiced that? "Bring another bottle as well, Andre," he said, gesturing to the bottle of fairy wine on their table. She frowned at it suspiciously. When had he emptied it into his glass? Was he vanishing the stuff into his stomach, or what?

"Right away, Monsieur," Andre said, with nary a glance her way to betray her earlier request. She had to admit he was a consummate professional.

"What have you been up to?" she asked, trying to steer the conversation away from her work for a few minutes, at least. She could only listen to him disparage it for so long. "You mentioned something about an internship this summer, didn't you?"

"It's an apprenticeship," Lestrange corrected, lifting his pale but beautifully angled face upwards—presumably so he could look smugly _down_ at her despite their being on eye-level. "Master Whitaker is taking me along to Chile to search for exotic ingredients with transformative properties in the forests and lakes to the south."

"So you're officially apprenticed to him?" she clarified, though she suspected the answer. "I hadn't heard."

Caelum narrowed his eyes at her. "It's a pre-apprenticeship trip," he said. "He's going to take me on in an official capacity after I impress him."

"So it's an internship," she said, smiling at his ruffled expression.

"It's more than you have," Lestrange said, blue eyes flashing.

"I'm thirteen," she reminded him. "And I have Master Snape agreeing to cooperate with me on cutting edge research—research driven by my own original experimentation, I might add. I wonder if he'll want to publish a paper together with our findings." She said the last entirely facetiously—there was no way Professor Snape was going to co-write anything with a teenager—but it was worth it to see Lestrange's face turn red.

She didn't know why it was so endlessly entertaining to pester him. It should have been annoying, constantly parrying his vitriolic attempts to infuriate her. Somehow, it was fun instead. She reflected that it might be because she was so much better at being irritating than he was—that, or she was more immune to irritations. It really was a strange sort of friendship they had.

"You're so full of it, Potter," Lestrange grumbled. Andre returned with the newly opened bottle and presented it ceremoniously. With a minute gesture, Caelum indicated that the waiter should pour. Andre didn't appear nervous at all, though he watched carefully as Caelum took a sip. The dark-haired boy frowned slightly, took another sip, and said, "Is this a different vintage?"

"Monsieur has a discerning palate," Andre said, bowing his head with a smile. "This is the better year, I am told."

Caelum inclined his head pompously, and it was all Harry could do to contain her mirth. "Very nice. Thank you, Andre."

The waiter demurred and left to collect their food. Lestrange turned to her and must have caught some of the amusement on her face. "What?" he demanded.

"I've never heard you thank someone before, Caelum," she said, smiling innocently.

"Don't get used to it," he said.

Their starters came momentarily, and they both tucked in without delay. Her baked goat cheese tart smelled delicious and tasted even better. Lestrange actually laughed at the rapturous look on her face. "Your French house-elf doesn't cook like this?" he teased.

"I don't have a house-elf," she mumbled between bites. It was too good to bother stopping to trade insults.

"I knew you were lying about learning French from one," Lestrange said, looking triumphant.

"Maybe I learned from a friend's house-elf," she said, glancing briefly up from her plate.

"I bet you don't have any friends with house-elves, either," Caelum said shrewdly.

She thought about that for a moment. As Harry, she supposed she didn't. Unless Neville had a house-elf—then again, they weren't really friends. She shrugged, and dug into her tart once more, conceding the point.

"Where did you learn French?" Lestrange insisted.

"You have the patience of a five-year-old," Harry told him. She paused with her fork raised and pinned him with a flat look. "Also, you'll never know."

"You are the most aggravating person in existence," Caelum complained.

"Oh, enough about me," she said airily. "Let's talk about you." He glowered at her. "No, really," she said, her face softening into something genuine. "How's your life other than the upcoming intern—ah, _apprenticeship?_ "

"Fine," he said, suspiciously. "Why? How's your life?"

"Fine," she said.

They stared at one another for a moment, then Lestrange said, "Let's not do that again."

"Right," she said, poking her tart. "Back to the internship."

"Apprenticeship," Lestrange snapped.

"Whatever you say." Harry smiled. "What's Master Whitaker like? Is he as self-important as his interviews sound?"

"I'm telling him you said that," Lestrange told her.

"Go ahead," she said. "And add that he's too liberal with the word 'legendary.'"

Caelum snorted. "He is, rather. He uses it in conversation, too, and it is very distracting."

"He must be brilliant, though," she said. "His work is always impeccably researched and full of contemporary allusions."

"He does make more references to other researchers' work than strictly warranted in casual discussion," Lestrange drawled. "You get used to it after a while, though. He's known my family for ages, so I've had plenty of time to—"

He broke off and coughed, looking down at his wine glass with a frown. She supposed he hadn't meant to admit that. She wondered if she should go for the kill, then mentally shrugged. Of course she should—it was _Lestrange_.

"He picked you because he knows your parents," she said, a sly smile on her face. Lestrange's cheeks were slightly pink, though whether from the wine or from embarrassment she didn't know. "Is that why he's making you his apprentice, too? Must be nice."

"Don't even act like you didn't get picked for the internship because you're friendly with the Aldermaster," Caelum said hotly. "I know you didn't even submit an application."

"Fair enough," she shrugged, letting him off the hook. "I guess we both have good connections."

"Yours are apparently better," the pale boy said, swilling his fairy wine somewhat morosely. "I suppose that cousin of yours introduced you to Master Snape."

"He did," Harry admitted.

"Just your luck he happens to be the one master in all of England who can figure out your obscure little technique," Lestrange said.

"You're right," she said, pushing her empty plate away. "I want to make the technique mainstream, but I don't know how to do that by myself. Master Snape is going to start experimenting with it, to see if we can expand the idea further, into something others will want to learn as well."

"Why would you want other people to learn it?" Lestrange asked, looking genuinely confused. He poured himself another glass of wine as Andre came to take the plates away and replace them with the main course. "I mean, if no one else can do it, you can charge whatever you want for it. Like that brewer who invented the cure for Speckled Fever before some humanitarian reverse-engineered it."

Trust Lestrange to be so cynical. "I want to better the whole world with my work. That's the point of it all. Not to make money."

Caelum rolled his eyes and jabbed his fork at her. "You didn't invent the wheel, brat. You invented…" He cast about visibly for an appropriate analogy. "The philosopher's stone. Or something like that," he added hastily when her eyebrows rose. "It can't benefit everyone because there aren't enough people worthy of recreating it."

"No one has ever recreated the philosopher's stone," she said.

"It's not an exact comparison," he said dismissively. "The point is, get over it. But teach it to me, obviously. If you won't make a Galleon off of it, I will."

"I'm not letting you patent it," she said poking at her lamb with a shake of her head.

"Who needs a patent?" Caelum laughed. "You just said no one else can do it, anyway."

She had to concede that point. "I'll teach you, but I can't guarantee it'll be easy. You need to learn wandless magic first."

Lestrange set down his wine glass and leveled her with an incredulous stare. "You're joking."

"I meant it when I said you needed good control." She shrugged somewhat apologetically.

"You learned wandless magic just so you could invent a new brewing technique?" Lestrange's expression said he thought she was mad.

"It wasn't that intentional," she said defensively.

"So you just happened to pick up wandless magic at that second-rate school in America?" Lestrange laughed humorlessly. "I guess the joke is on us." She knew by 'us' he meant purebloods who attended elite schools. In fact the joke was on them, though not for the reasons Lestrange thought.

They polished off their meals in relative silence, each thinking their own thoughts. Caelum poured the remainder of the bottle of wine into his glass as well, and she wondered how a boy of seventeen—or eighteen, she wasn't sure when his birthday was—had become so efficient at metabolizing alcohol. Even with the waiter watering down the second bottle, it was still a bottle and a half of fairy wine in just a couple of hours. He ought to be passed out on the floor. She had see men collapse at their tables in the Phoenix after consuming less.

She narrowed her eyes at him, taking in his completely focused expression and the elegant, unimpaired way he dissected his fish. Something was off. Lestrange was as skinny as a bowtruckle. There was no way he could put away that much booze without losing his lunch. He didn't notice her scrutiny, too busy dividing his fish into weirdly uniform pieces. He stopped to take a drink from his glass and then she noticed it. The wine went into his mouth, but he didn't swallow. She waited—maybe he was savoring it. No, that wasn't it. He put a piece of fish in his mouth shortly after and there was no sign of the wine when she peered past his annoyingly perfect teeth.

"You're vanishing it," she exclaimed, setting down her fork with a clank. "You—you—do you know how much that costs per bottle? And you aren't even drinking it? How are you doing that, anyway?"

Lestrange lifted one eyebrow imperiously. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You are such a phony," she said, thoroughly exasperated. "What is it? A localized vanishing charm? Did you carve a rune into your tongue?"

He smirked. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

"Since I'm paying for this wine you didn't drink, yes, I would." She scowled.

"It's not like I don't appreciate it," Caelum said defensively. "I taste it before it vanishes."

"I…" she rubbed her forehead. "I can't even fathom you right now. Why would you do that?"

"I was taught to always do that when I go out to eat with someone," he said, shrugging as though it were a normal thing to admit. "Usually the assumption is that my companions drink as well, except they get drunk and I don't. Plus, it puts people off balance if I look in control after imbibing a large amount of liquor. It's a business negotiation trick."

"We…aren't business associates," she said slowly. "And you didn't imbibe a 'large amount.' You imbibed a 'suspicious amount.' Two bottles? That's a huge red flag."

"You're the first to notice," he said, looking thoughtfully at her.

"How many times have you done this?" she asked, her voice rising with her incredulity.

"You're not the only person I've ever had lunch with," Lestrange drawled. "So sorry to burst your bubble."

She shook her head, a slightly hysterical laugh shaking her chest, and leaned back into her seat. "You exhaust me."

"The feeling is mutual," Caelum assured her with a half-hearted sneer.

Andre came to take their plates and, after a nod from her, presented them with the check. She slid it toward herself reluctantly and fought a wince at the bottom line.

"Do you have enough?" Lestrange almost sounded a little guilty.

"Nope," she said, voice flat. "I forgot to bring my first-born."

He huffed a laugh. "Seriously, I can get the tab waived—my parents come here embarrassingly often."

She shook her head with a small smile. "Thanks, but I've got it." She certainly wasn't going to use the Lestrange name to stiff the restaurant out of two bottles of fairy wine—plus the food. It was a good thing Krait had just paid her for her usual order plus the crate of Protection Potions.

Her pockets much lighter, she stood and walked with Lestrange to the street. The afternoon was waning and the errand-running throngs were thinning to make way for the evening crowd. Perhaps it was the scarcity of people about that made Caelum amenable to walking with her back to the Leaky Cauldron.

"You are going to teach me how to Shaped Imbue," he said just before heading for the Floo. It was not a request, but Harry found she didn't mind—she was surprised he even knew what the proper name for her technique was.

"I'm free all summer," she said, a genuine smile creeping onto her face. "If you can fit me in around you apprenticeship, that is."

"I'll see what I can do, though of course I can't make any promises," Lestrange sniffed.

She refrained from rolling her eyes and reminding him that he was asking her for a favor—barely. "Don't fall off a cliff in Chile," she said cheerfully.

"Don't get kidnapped by Unspeakables for your potions ability," Lestrange said insincerely.

"So you think I have ability," she smiled broadly.

"Goodbye, brat."

"I'll miss you too," she said, waving her fingers as he reached for the Floo powder. "Don't forget to write."

Grumbling something uncomplimentary, Caelum Lestrange Flooed away without a backwards glance. _Always the charmer_ , she thought, reaching for the Floo powder herself.

The afternoon hadn't been a total loss, though. The older boy had been fairly human through most of lunch. The food wasn't bad, either. And the best part: she had a new project for the week ahead. She was going to figure out how Lestrange had managed the wine-vanishing trick if it was the only thing she accomplished all summer.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

With the tournament approaching and the events of the previous year branded in stark relief on the walls of her subconscious, Harry threw herself into her training with Leo. If he was at all taken aback by the deadly earnest she applied to their practice bouts, he didn't say anything. Instead, he gave as good as he got. She always left with bruises and the occasional knife slice, but that just meant her Healing skills got exercised as well.

Most afternoons found her rolling in the dirt under the artificial sun of the Phoenix's courtyard, and this one was no different. She had her wand in her right hand and a simple fixed knife in a forward hammer grip with her left hand. For the moment, Leo was across the courtyard, standing still, and she was leaning against the wall, panting for breath. She pushed herself upright when he gestured her forward with his own knife, which he also carried left-handed. For the moment, neither of them was using their wands for anything other than a placeholder. The focus of this lesson was knife logistics in a wand fight.

She bent her knees and closed the distance slowly, watching his knife carefully. It was blunted—as was hers—but they wouldn't always be. She had to learn this now.

"Raise your blade higher," Leo said, eyes roving constantly for mistakes as they circled out of range of one another. "You have to protect your face and neck. Most of your attackers will be taller than you. How will they attack?"

"From above," she grunted, moving her left hand swiftly to counter the demonstration that was forthcoming. Leo's knife came slashing downwards toward her face, the momentum of his body behind it. She moved her knife across her body to intercept the underside of his left forearm. If she could make him drop the knife—

"Stop." She froze, knife tilted with the edge toward Leo's wrist as he stilled his movement just inches above it. His knife was aimed unerringly at her right eye, but it was at least a hand-span away. "What happens when we connect?"

"You drop your weapon and your left wrist tendons are severed, making you unable to continue utilizing your knife for the remainder of the fight," she said.

Leo's blank face told her she'd missed something. "What happens when I let go of my knife from the pain?"

"It…" she grimaced, eyeing the suspended weapon grimly. "Continues forward with momentum and hits me in the face."

"You made no move to dodge the results of the move you sought to execute," Leo said, nodding. "If someone comes at you from above, what do you do?"

"Catch the blade itself on my knife," she hazarded, moving her knife backwards until it was poised beneath Leo's blade.

"And if I'm stronger than you—which I am?" Leo prodded.

"My arm buckles and I lose an eye," she sighed. "I should just dodge it, shouldn't I?"

"You should," Leo agreed, backing up once more. He repeated the same move and this time Harry leapt backwards out of the way, keeping her knife between her face and his advance even as he charged several more steps toward her and she beat a continuous retreat. "Good," he said, nodding. "Don't try getting rid of your opponent's knife. It's a one in a million that an experienced opponent overextends his arm at a height you can come down on top of anyway. Just avoid it."

She nodded, getting back into a balanced position automatically, wand held out to the side of her body and the knife across her front defensively. Leo readied himself, then crouched and charged low, knife held close to his chest even as it pointed toward her gut. She leapt to the left and Leo knocked her wand from her hand as he passed her. She picked it up and pressed her lips together. She knew better than that. Before he could even prompt her, she said, "I should have jumped right and slashed at you with my knife as you passed my left side."

"Then do that," he said. They faced off again and he executed the same low charge toward her middle. She jumped right and swung the knife in a backhanded arch toward his exposed back—except it wasn't exposed. Leo twisted mid-lunge and used his right forearm to come up under her slash and knock it wide while moving his left hand to present her throat with his blade. They froze, and Harry took in their positioning with sharp eyes. Her wand was at the wrong angle to stop him before he cut her throat.

"I should have let you go by me and gotten out of the way instead of trying to retaliate," she said, blowing out a breath. Why was the answer always run away?

"Yes," Leo said, straightening. He tapped her left hand where it gripped the knife with his hilt and said seriously, "You are not a knife fighter, Harry. Repeat that."

"I am not a knife fighter." She frowned. She was trying to learn, though.

"Don't look at me like that," Leo said, grinning a bit. "You can't fight reality. I didn't put this weapon in your hand for you to use it, as counterintuitive as that may sound. A knife should always be a threat in your hand. For you, it is a method of defense and deterrence, not attack. Your strength in a duel is your magic. If you get knife happy and forget that, you will lose to more experienced knife fighters and more experienced magic users both. This," he said, tapping the knife under her fingers hard enough to make it shake for emphasis, "is to protect _this_." He tapped her wand hand with his own wand.

She nodded slowly. He was right, of course. "I just have to keep the knife between me and my opponent. I don't have to take their knife away or attack them with my knife. I just have to protect myself from physical blows that could cripple me while my wand does the real work."

"Exactly," he said, backing into the start position once more. "Too many folk around here will rely on their weapons to control a fight. They do that because they don't have your core's endurance or the versatile repertoire of spells you do. They're used to fighting under the Ministry's radar, and that usually means hand-to-hand or blade-to-blade. You do not have to fight on their level. Unless you're an idiot. Are you an idiot, Harry?"

"No," she said, smiling a bit. "I won't be an idiot."

"Good, because idiots get killed," Leo said flatly. "Make it a magic fight, and you'll always have the advantage. That said, good duelers can also be killed by a blade they let get too close, so let's get back to it."

She readied herself, keeping everything he'd said in mind. He came at her quickly, but she was accustomed to fast-paced exchanges and didn't have trouble reacting. Each time he thrust or slashed she moved out of the way. Even when she saw an opening, she didn't take it. This went on for several minutes before Leo's foot came out of nowhere and slapped the knife from her hand. She curled her smarting fingers in frustration as he said, "Freeze."

He was just a few feet away, while her knife was halfway across the courtyard. "Many competitors will wear armored boots for just such a reason. Watch their feet as well as their knife and wand." She didn't know how she was supposed to watch all three at once, but she didn't say so. If other people did, then so could she. "Now I have a knife and you don't. If you stay where you are I have the advantage in range and lethality. You have two choices; what are they?"

"I can get out of range or I can close and try to level the field by knocking your knife away while you're still off balance," she said.

"Choose," Leo said. She jumped backwards to a safe distance and brandished her wand at him symbolically. "Good," he said. "If your opponent doesn't have his knife tied to his wrist, you can summon it from him much more safely than you can try knocking it from his hand with yours."

"Should I tie mine to my wrist?" she asked.

"You could," Leo allowed. "If you were also planning on wearing incredibly thick arm guards. Otherwise when the ties pull the knife taut it'll just swing back into your own wrist before you can get a grip on it. Actually…" He smirked. "I've got a better trick. Do you know how to overtake a Summoning Charm?"

"Hold onto whatever they're summoning really tightly?" she guessed.

"No," he said, chuckling. "That's how you physically deny a Summoning Charm. Once the Summoning Charm takes hold, though, what can you do to stop it?"

"Nothing," she said, frowning.

"Not true," Leo told her. "You can do two things—speed it up or slow it down. To do either, though, you have to catch it."

"I'm not sure I follow," she admitted. Why would you want to speed up your opponent's Summoning Charm in the first place?

"All right, sit down," Leo said, gesturing to the dirt floor. She sank down gratefully, massaging her calf muscles as he began his explanation. "First: does a Summoning Charm work by causing the object you cast it on to animate and find its own way back to you?"

"No," she said, smiling at the idea of using something so complex as inanimate animation to summon an object. "It's just like attaching a line of magic to it and reeling it in. You don't have to be able to see the object to attach your magic to it, though that certainly helps. The spell sends out a line toward the location of whatever you're trying to summon—provided you have a complete enough understanding of the object itself in your mind—and once it 'finds' it, the line retracts along the path of least resistance."

"Which in a dueling arena is…?" Leo prompted.

"A straight line," she supposed.

"Does the summoned object move at the average speed of magic?" Leo asked.

She shook her head. The average speed of magic was the pace at which most spells moved. It was faster than a human could run, but much slower than the speed of sound or actual light, for instance. Hence why it was possible to dodge spells at all. A summoned object, however, wasn't pure magic. It had to interact with the world it moved through, which meant… "It moves slower. The object itself slows the magic down, depending on how heavy or big it is."

"That's right," Leo said. "So in theory an object that is being summoned would be slow enough for another spell to catch up to it before it reached the summoner, with me?"

"I think so," she said, nodding slowly. "A Summoning Charm doesn't create a visible light, though. You'd have to guess where the line of magic was to affect it."

"Not as hard as you'd think," Leo said. "Just aim for the imaginary line segment created between the castor's wand and the object. As long as there isn't anything in between the two, it's always a—"

"Straight line," she said, smiling. "Brilliant. What spell can you cast on another spell, though? Wouldn't it be easier to cast on the object being summoned?"

"It would, and that's how you _overpower_ a Summoning Charm, by casting a stronger Summoning Charm on the same object and canceling the first one out, but people expect that," Leo said, grinning. "If you successfully _overtake_ a Summoning Charm, nine out of ten wizards will assume you tried to hit the object itself but missed. They won't realize the charm has been tampered with until whatever they summoned either halts in midair or smacks them in the face."

Her eyes widened. "And if they summoned my knife—"

"It would catch up to them a lot quicker than they thought," Leo said, his grin turning a bit dark.

"That's monstrously clever, Leo," she said, a bit awed.

"I have been doing this awhile, lass," he said immodestly.

"So tell me which spells to use, Master Leo," she said lightly. An unholy glee lit Leo's face and she backpedaled quickly. "Oh, no. That was a joke, Leo, I am _not_ calling you that."

"Why not?" Leo said, eyes wide with pretend innocence. "You are sort of my disciple, Harry."

"Let's stick with pupil," she said, grimacing at the idea of Leo in the robes of a Dueling master.

"Professor Leo, then," he said, leaning back on his hands to look up at the sky idly. "It doesn't sound as impressive."

"I'm not calling you that, either," she said, tossing a handful of dirt at her friend.

He looked down at the dust covering his trousers and sighed. "I just had these washed."

"You didn't either," she snorted. "You wore them yesterday."

"I had them washed yesterday morning," he insisted.

"That's not 'just' in anyone's book, Leo," she laughed.

"You're a very disrespectful disciple." He sighed.

"I get that a lot," she said, smiling at the irony. Professor Snape said that about her all the time.

"It's a wonder anyone bothers to teach you anything, then," he said airily. "Perhaps I'll keep the anti-Summoning spells to myself."

"Well perhaps when I get humiliated in the first round of the tournament I'll make sure everyone knows who my illustrious instructor was," Harry said, equally airy.

"Good point," he said. With an acrobatic bend he found his feet and waited for her to push herself upright as well before clapping his hands together. "All right, do you know Arresto Momentum?"

"Sure," she said, rolling her wand wrist briefly. "Is the slowing spell like that?"

"It, uh, is that," Leo said, scratching his neck sheepishly. "And the accelerating spell is actually just the Banishing Charm."

She shot him an unimpressed look. "What was that about keeping these oh-so-special anti-Summoning spells to yourself?"

"Just give it a go," Leo said, flapping his hands toward the other side of the courtyard. Harry obediently backed up until she faced him across a considerable distance. She held herself at the ready and Leo nodded once before calling, "Accio!"

She felt the knife tugged sharply from her hand, but her wand was already moving and her focus didn't waver. "Depulso," she snapped. Before the knife had covered half the distance, her spell caught up to it, then soared past it to intercept its magical trajectory at an angle. At first there was no visible sign to indicate whether her aim had been accurate, but a split second later the knife rocketed forward as if propelled by a blast. Leo ducked out of the way as the knife, wildly out of control, sailed past him and into the wall with a loud clatter.

Solom poked his head out of the door that led to the kitchen and shouted, "Stop throwing knives at my walls, yer Majesty!"

Leo gave an insincere wave until the old innkeeper ducked back inside, then turned to her with a grin. "Very good—work on silent casting, though. Even someone who's never seen that trick could probably guess what a Banishing Charm cast at the knife was meant to do. Now try the other one."

Practice went on until they were both tired and sweaty. By the end of it, Harry's ears were ringing with things like, "Control the edge!" and "It's not a stick, don't whack with it!" In their last bout she had been 'sliced' several times with the blunt edge of Leo's knife and had some seriously itchy scratches to show for it. Leo called the match to a close after counting up the scratches on her arms and informing her that in a real fight she would have bled out already. "Adrenaline makes you bleed faster," he helpfully reminded her as he collected her practice knife and tucked it away into one of his many pockets. "That's why you can't let them cut you at all unless you get something really significant out of it. It's like chess—you don't exchange pawns for pawns if you want to win. Only sacrifice something small if it gains you something big. Like a king," he added with a jaunty wink.

He went to collect water from the kitchen for them while she started stretching out her tired arms. They sat with their backs against one of the walls as Leo went over what she'd done right and wrong in minute detail. She had no idea how he could be so observant in the middle of a fight, but she supposed it must be a skill you picked up over time.

"What do I do if someone manages to stab me?" she asked as his analysis wound down. "Should I just forfeit right away?"

"Well, yes," he said, looking a bit disturbed. "I don't think you'll be stabbed, though, lass. That only happens in real life."

Her eyebrows rose with her confusion. "As opposed to the fantasy world we'll be holding the tournament in?"

Leo shook his head sharply. "There's a big difference between a duel and an actual knife fight, Harry. For one thing, 'knife fights' don't happen in real life. Outside of the dueling ring, if someone pulls a knife on you they can only have two practical plans of action. Either they draw it where you can see, in which case they are attempting to frighten you off and probably don't want to use it, or you don't know they have it until they've stabbed you in the back, in the dark, in a secluded alley where no one will hear your screams."

"That's very reassuring," she said faintly.

"It's the truth," Leo said. "A knife is a lethal weapon. If it's in play in real life, someone wants someone else dead or someone is frightened for his life. No one starts a casual bar fight with a knife, unless they're insane." His face softened a bit at her tense expression and he said, patiently, "In a duel the object is not to kill the other person, it's to best them with technical skill. That's why it happens in the open, face to face, in front of witnesses. No one is looking to kill anyone—it's just a tournament. I highly doubt there will be any stabbing. You might get cut a bit, but even in freedueling the weapons are secondary to our wands. Your opponent is just like you—he'll use nonlethal magic to end the fight, no matter how much he relies on physicality and weapons to get the upper hand in the fight itself. Using a blade to end a match is asking to become a murderer."

She nodded, feeling a bit better about the whole thing. It was silly, comparing a duel to a real life-or-death fight. The point of the tournament was to prove who was the quickest and cleverest, not the cruelest. Then she frowned. "Wait, you ended a fight with a knife once—against Marek. You summoned it nonverbally and it stabbed him in the back."

Leo grimaced. "Marek is an ass who wastes entirely too much of my time challenging me for a title he doesn't really want. Whatever his skill in the ring, he would make a terrible Rogue and I refuse to allow it. Even if it means stabbing him from time to time to remind the idiot why it's a _bad idea_ to challenge me."

"So it's okay for the king to stab people, but everyone else ought to play nice," she said archly, a smile playing about her mouth.

"Lass, you can stab anyone who looks at you funny if you like," Leo said, looking supremely unconcerned at he took a swig of his water. "As long as you don't mind getting stabbed back. My folk don't take much lying down."

"I don't know," she said, musing. "They put up with _you_."

Leo glanced at the heavens in supplication. "Why am I cursed with such irreverent subjects?"

"I'm not your subject," she scoffed. 

"You pay a tithe," he reminded her, grinning.

She had nothing to refute that, so she opted to take another drink of water instead. She began flexing her feet idly, enjoying the pull of well-used muscles. She could feel herself getting stronger every day, and she knew she had Leo to thank for a lot of that. Remus was an excellent resource—and a prodigiously talented instructor—but his expertise was in magic-only duels. While athleticism could be a factor, it was nothing next to the sheer physicality required to compete in a free duel.

She glanced over at Leo, thinking she ought to thank him again for all the time he willingly spent helping her get better, and found him already looking over at her with a considering expression. She quirked a brow in a silent question. His eyes drifted off to an indeterminate point past her face and he said, "I heard something interesting from one of my ears this week."

"Oh?" She blinked at him. "What's that?"

"One of them saw you eating pretty with a little lord," he said, voice a study in casualness.

"A little—oh, you mean Lestrange?" She shrugged, a bit nonplussed. Was everything she did in the alleys a matter of public record? First Snape knew about Krait, then Caelum knew about Snape, and then this. "We interned at the Guild together and grabbed lunch to catch up. I'm surprised your lookouts recognized me—I wasn't even wearing my brewing boots." She said the last with a self-deprecating smile, but Leo didn't smile back.

"Nice place to take a friend for lunch," he said, moving his eyes back to her face briefly.

She winced. "He's a major snob. Refused to be seen anywhere else, and I really wish I was joking." She sighed just thinking about it. "It's no wonder he doesn't have any other friends." As Leo's measuring look she added somewhat guiltily. "He's not so bad, though. Knows his potions, at least."

Leo was silent for a moment, and looked to be chewing over her words. In a thoughtful voice he said, "Fourteen is about the age you lot start looking for mates, isn't it?"

Harry rolled her eyes. "Don't say 'you lot' like you aren't from a perfectly respectable family. You dad is the Aldermaster of the Potions Guild."

"Respectable my pa may be, but it's not because we're in the Book of Bronze. It's hard work and money earned, plain as that." Leo's face was still very relaxed, but she was getting an increasingly serious vibe. "I certainly don't have to worry about finding some powdered princess with a pedigree to carry on my line."

"How fortunate for you," she snorted. She couldn't help but think of Pansy, and how not everyone was so free. Trying to lighten the mood, she said airily, "I suppose you'll reign on high in these alleys for the rest of your days, collecting ears and besting Marek in duels until your beard grows so long you can't compete without tripping on it."

"Naw, it won't come to that," Leo said, crossing his arms and tilting his head up at the illusory sky. "One day some talented youngster will do to me what I did to the old king. I'll retire my crown and settle down with my gal and we'll live happily ever after."

Harry smiled at the image. "Maybe you and one of Rispah's ladies can turn one another honest."

"Honest is a strong word," Leo chuckled. "Besides, I've already got my eye on a lass, and something tells me honesty isn't high on her priority list." He slid an eye her way and said, deliberately. "I'm just waiting for her to come around to my way of thinking."

Harry was abruptly uncomfortable. Casting around for a response that didn't require thinking deeply about what Leo was saying, she cleared her throat and said, brightly, "Well, you'll have to win the tournament if you want to impress her. Who are you up against first—it's not me, is it? That would be an awful short run."

Leo didn't answer for a few agonizing moments, but when he did it was with relaxed amusement. "Haven't you checked the listings yet? They've been posted for three days."

She looked over in surprise. "Where? In the Phoenix?"

"At the statue on Pendragon Alley where the arena will be," he said, standing and brushing himself off. "Come on, I'll show you."

"Good idea putting the tourney close to Maywell," she commented as they passed through the Dancing Phoenix. Pendragon Alley, so named for the prominent statue of King Arthur that was its most memorable feature, intersected with the street the clinic sat on, Wormwood Row.

"We did put some thought into it," Leo said. He sent her an amused look as she scowled in response to his teasing, and they made their way through they alleys behind Kyprioth Court in companionable silence.

When they reached the statue on the corner of Pendragon Alley and Wormwood Row, it was already crowded with people curious about the tournament's setup. The alley folk made way readily enough for Leo, who greeted many of them by name as they approached. Harry was curious to see that the piece of parchment affixed to the statue's shield didn't mention the tournament by name or give a time or place or any other details she might expect to see on an event notice. It was simply a bracket that bloomed from two slots in the middle to sixty-four branches at the edges of the parchment, each of which had a name. Leo was number one, of course. She scanned the list to find herself at number fifteen. That meant she wouldn't face Leo until the fourth round. Providing she made it that far. She was listed simply as 'Harry,' while her first opponent was called… 'Fearless Frank.'

She turned to Leo with a slight smile. "Is he a pirate?"

Leo laughed. "No. Frank works at the kennels over on Long Street. Some of the competitors wanted to spice up their entry names, and alliteration appears to be a theme."

She scanned the rest of the names and saw mixed in among the perfectly normal ones names like 'Rowdy Rhonda,' 'Ben the Butcher,' and 'Dr. Doom.' "I hope Ben is an actual butcher," she muttered, shaking her head.

"Leo!"

They both turned to see Aled Flint standing across the huge intersection Arthur's statue stood watch over. He was standing next to a wizard dressed all in black, which Harry thought a bit dramatic when it was barely twilight yet. It wasn't any of her business, though, so she didn't look too closely at the hooded figure as she and Leo made their way over to the blacksmith.

"I was just telling our Ward master where the perimeter of the stage is going to go," Aled said, gesturing to the space around them vaguely. "He needs to know what kind of a crowd we're expecting, so the undetectably expanded dimensions in the outer wards will be big enough to allow them all in."

"And I need to know if you want the surrounding houses included so any residents may watch from their balconies," the cloaked man added. She recognized the voice immediately, and had to fight to keep from stiffening.

 _What in Merlin's name is Regulus Black doing down here, of all places?_ she thought, covering her panic with a casual pivot that allowed her to turn her back to the men in the guise of taking in the street around them. She tilted her head and pretended to imagine what the stage might look like once it was constructed, possible courses of action running amok in her head all the while. Had he recognized her? Probably not. She was dressed in street clothes, sweaty and dirty from an afternoon of training, and she'd been a step behind Leo when they walked over. Chances were he dismissed her as an irrelevant bystander and hadn't looked too closely at her face. Lots of people had short hair and wore glasses. He was no more looking for Harriett Potter than she had been looking for Regulus Black. As long as she kept her mouth shut and didn't give him a great look at her face, she could easily remain overlooked.

She did keep her ears open, however; she was curious as to why a pureblood like Regulus would be working with the Rogue. She knew he was a Ward master, but she had assumed he worked primarily on the construction of security wards for the sumptuous summer homes of rich lords and ladies of the _ton_. For that matter, how could the Court of the Rogue even afford a master like Regulus Black? She didn't imagine he was the sort to do pro bono work for jollies.

"Just a dome around the intersection will be fine," Leo was saying. "We're going to evacuate the residents temporarily in case the wards around the arena itself fail."

"About those, I'll need the exact dimensions of the inner wards and the items you intend to use as keys as soon as possible," Regulus said, his voice a slightly bored drawl. She supposed he must build a lot of custom wards to be so unenthused about it.

"Keys?" Aled sounded a bit lost.

"The inner wards covering the actual battleground will protect the spectators from stray spells while protecting the competitors from interference from the crowd," Regulus explained. "Unless you want to key each competitor into the wards before their matches and unkey them afterwards so they can't interfere with the next match, it's easier to make a couple of items like bracelets or amulets that act as general keys and can be passed from contender to contender between matches."

"I'll need three keys, then," Leo said firmly. "Someone on the outside should have one in case those on the inside are injured or otherwise unable to get out under their own power."

"That's no problem," Regulus said. "I also understand you need these wards taken up and taken down rather quickly."

"Yes, we'd like to disrupt the lives of the residents as little as possible," Leo said. Unspoken was that the shorter amount of time the wards stood, the less chance there was of attracting the interest of the Ministry.

"The tournament lasts a week, correct?" Regulus clarified.

"Less than," Leo said. "Six rounds over four days, with awards given after the championship match."

"I'll put the wards up one day beforehand and take them down a day later, then," Regulus said. "I assume you'll want to give vendors time to set up and tear down their wares."

"Definitely," Aled said. She could hear the man's eager smile even without turning to see it.

"Very well," Regulus said, sounding satisfied. "The design will be a downsized version of the temporary awareness ward used for events like the Quidditch World Cup, but instead of repelling Muggles it'll reroute anyone who doesn't know it's there."

"Perfect," Leo said happily. "Can't thank you enough, Master Black."

"Gold is all the thanks I require," Regulus said dismissively.

"You'll get it when the wards go up, on faith that you'll take them down," Leo assured him.

"Good." She heard a couple of people moving behind her and assumed they were shaking hands. "Until then," Regulus said before she heard the swish of a cloak that meant he'd taken his leave.

She turned around to eye the back of his form as he walked briskly in the direction of the upper alleys. Leo clapped her on the shoulder, saying, "Sorry about that bit of business. Not boring you, were we?"

"Not at all," she said, smiling. "It sounds like the wards are going to be just what you need."

"They ought to be, for what we're paying," Aled said, a bit sourly.

"He's worth it," Leo said. "Master Black is known for his custom solutions and his absolute discretion."

"Have you worked with him before?" Harry asked casually.

"A few times," Leo said, just as casually. "You didn't think _I_ designed the wards around the new Phoenix, did you?"

She shrugged. "I hadn't thought about it. Do you know him very well?"

"Not as well as you, I'd wager," Leo said pointedly. He shot a glance at Aled, but the blacksmith wasn't paying attention to them any longer. He was busy muttering measurements to himself as he surveyed the ground where the stage he was charged with constructing would sit. "Isn't he the younger brother of your dear uncle?" Leo went on. "Don't think I didn't notice you hiding your face from him."

"We've rarely met," Harry said in a low voice. "Still, better safe than sorry. He doesn't care for me much, and I don't doubt he'd relish having something to hold over my head."

Leo frowned. "Why wouldn't he like you? Isn't his nephew your closest friend?"

"That's the problem," Harry sighed. "He believes I am a poor influence on Archie."

"Well, he's right about that," Leo said with a laugh. "You brought that innocent little boy deep into the pits of the lower alleys just to run an errand at Frein's with you."

"Archie wanted to come," Harry muttered. "I'd never let anything happen to him."

"Does his uncle know that?" Leo asked pointedly.

Harry mulled that over as they headed back toward Kyprioth Court. She supposed Regulus had no way of knowing that she considered Archie closer than a brother. She would do anything for him, but Regulus only knew so far that Rigel—Archie—would do anything for _her_. Perhaps their relationship seemed uneven in his eyes. If she forced herself to be objective she had to admit that she could have been slightly more reassuring and less antagonistic.

It was funny; the first time she'd come to the lower alleys she'd felt like they were a world unto themselves, apart from everything she was familiar with. In her mind the alleys were a place that had nothing to do with purebloods and politics and the people she knew from her other life. She was beginning to realize that things weren't so simple, and that her two worlds were more closely connected than she'd ever imagined or cared to admit. It wasn't a pleasant realization, but it was, she thought, important. It meant she couldn't afford to get careless. It was time to put real thought into the future life she wanted to live.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

 _Dear Harry,_

 _Glad to hear from you; you seem to be doing well, all things considered. I'd like to say for the record that I totally predicted you'd get yourself caught up in something exciting and/or dangerous. Wish I could see you compete! You'll have to tell me all about it when I get back. Don't get yourself disemboweled while I'm not there to patch you up._

 _We're under quarantine at the village—turns out there was a mass outbreak of spattergroit! It's so fascinating to see procedures I've read about implemented first hand like this. Don't worry about me, though; if I were a poor enough Healer to catch spattergroit then I'd deserve every oozing pustule._

 _As for Hermione—_ _don't blow her off!_ _She is my very best friend and I care for her dearly. If you make her hate me I shall be very cross with you. I know you can be me being you if you try. Just relax and tell lots of jokes and try not to get into any conversations about Healing that are too complex. Try a neutral activity that doesn't require too much talking. Muggle movies are a blast. Or maybe take her to meet Addy. Girls love babies. Well, not you, obviously, but other girls do…I think._

 _Good luck with your experimenting this summer, and please please please don't alienate Hermione by saying something insensitive. She really means a lot to me._

 _Love,_

 _Archie_

-0—0—0

-0—0

-0

[end of chapter two].

A/N: We are on a roll! So much goodness in this book, and it is just getting started. I can honestly say I've waited for this book since I started writing the series. I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it. For those of you finishing up your spring semesters, I hope these 27,000 words make you feel like summer. Your reviews have inspired me in so many ways. Sometimes I see a prediction that is so scarily accurate I think about changing the plot and other times I see something that I wish I'd thought of myself (and sometimes I steal those ideas quietly and pretend my readers are just very good guessers). I guess what I'm trying to say is: thank you for writing them! It makes my life.

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers!

The very best to everyone else,

-Violet


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Apparently this needs to be said: I have no plans to kill off Leo. Or anyone else who doesn't absolutely have to die for the sake of the plot. I really like my characters. I'm going to try keeping them around. Speculation is great, you guys, but try not to alarm people with random death predictions in the reviews if you can help it.

Now, onwards! This chapter covers the duration of the tournament, so expect a lot of the lower alleys and lengthy (read: very lengthy) fight scenes. I promise next chapter will have more of your favorite HP characters to get the plot back on track for the book four arc. That said, don't ignore the little things in this one—they definitely come back into play later on.

 **The Futile Façade:**

 **Chapter 3:**

She hadn't heard anything from Flint all summer and, while she didn't begrudge his mother a minute in the apartment on Dogwood Lane, she did want to know how long exactly she needed to keep Leo away from the place. After a lengthy deliberation, she decided it wouldn't be unusual for Harry to stop by and check in on Mrs. Flint. After all, they'd met during the semester and had grown into something like polite friendship during the week she'd imposed on the quiet woman. Perhaps she wouldn't mind telling Harry how her son's job hunt was going.

She left for the Leaky mid-morning, preferring to walk to Dogwood rather than surprise Mrs. Flint through the Floo. It was a beautiful summer day in Diagon; there was just enough breeze to keep smells from stagnating without having a wind strong enough to bring the ever-present dust to eye level. On her way toward Knockturn, she met the eyes of several people she recognized on sight as regular patrons of the Dancing Phoenix. A few waved or nodded, but most contented themselves with a swift, assessing glance that was neither hostile nor curious. It was the kind of look that said simply, _I see you_ , and she received it often in the alleys. The community was close-knit, even in the shadiest areas, though the closeness wasn't necessarily _friendly_.

She had just turned onto Kyprioth Court when a child's giggling caught her attention. Her eyes moved automatically to the source and found the little girl with the blue ribbon fluttering her fingers at Harry from where she sat on a doorstep. Harry paused in her stroll to alter her course and came to stand before the child. "You again," she said, smiling down at the seven-year-old. The little girl dipped a half-curtsey from where she was seated with her patchwork skirt tucked daintily underneath her. "How's the flower-selling business these days?"

The girl's laughter sent her curly red hair aquiver in its ponytail. "Good, if you like bees," she said, smirking impishly. "Sometimes they follow me for ages."

"You must be brave, to put up with it," Harry praised her.

"You must be brave, to enter the tourney," the girl said. She picked up a long-stemmed tulip and held it up to Harry with a winning smile. "Flower for good luck?"

"That worried for me?" she asked, flipping the girl a couple coins in exchange for the flower, which she tucked through her belt loop like an ornamental sword.

"The King would be sad if anything happened to you," the girl said, grinning.

"The King should be more worried about himself," Harry said wryly. He was the one who had to win the whole thing, after all. She glanced about the court, then took a seat next to the girl with a mental shrug. "What's your name, young miss?"

"Margaret," the girl said at once. "Only, everyone calls me Margo."

"It's nice to meet you, Margo," she said, holding out a hand. The girl took it primly in something that was more like the shaking out of a handkerchief than a handshake.

"You, too," Margo said, smiling so wide Harry could see the gap where her left canine had recently fallen out. "Are you going to see the King today?"

"Not today," Harry said. "I'm visiting a friend."

"I'm visiting my friend today, too!" Margo exclaimed, obviously pleased at the coincidence. "She's at Maywell and I'm going to bring her a flower to cheer her up."

"That's a good idea," Harry said, smiling slightly. "Sick people really appreciate flowers."

Margo nodded solemnly. "Maybe I'll bring her lots of flowers, then. She's very ill."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Harry said, her smile falling.

"It's okay," Margo said earnestly. "Cora is super tough. She's a juggler, and she can do four knives at once! She goes to Maywell all the time when she messes up and gets cut. Or, she used to, at least."

Harry wasn't sure what to say to that. "It sounds very difficult," she offered.

"It is," Margo agreed, shrugging. "I'm no good at juggling. Or thieving. And I don't like to run anyway, so I sell flowers. Henry thinks flower-selling is for sissies, but Cora says Henry is jealous that he's not cute enough to sell anything so he _has_ to thieve."

"Are… you all part of the Court of Rogues, then?" she asked.

"Oh yes," Margo said, nodding. "You should meet them—not Henry, he's mouthy, but the others. Cora would love to meet you. She almost never works in Diagon, so she doesn't catch a glimpse of you often. Jason—he sweeps up the bird-droppings at Eeylops—wants to meet you, too. He thinks you're pretty."

"I'm not, really," she said, feeling awkward and uncertain. The kids Leo used to keep tabs on her wanted to meet her? She supposed it was a natural curiosity.

"That's what I told him," Margo said proudly. "I said you're _interesting_ -looking, and that's better than pretty."

"Thank you," she said, fighting a smile. "Well, I'd love to meet them. Next time they see me in the alley, tell them to introduce themselves."

"I will," Margo said, smiling brightly and setting her pulled-back hair to bobbing again as she nodded. The girl glanced up at the sky and said abruptly, "Ooh, I'm late! Bye, Harry. See you soon, okay?"

She nodded, waving as the little girl scrambled to heft her oversized basket and scurry in the direction of the Phoenix. Harry followed at a more sedate pace until she reached the alley that branched off from Kyprioth Court toward the residential districts beyond. She wound her way slowly toward her destination, taking in the smells of mobile vendors and the bright pops of color that signaled the arrival of summer in window boxes and in patches on the ground where the steady flow of pedestrian traffic hadn't quite beat the weeds that cropped up between doorways into submission.

Dogwood Lane was as tidy as ever; it looked as though the street-facing windows had recently all received a good cleaning, and several doorsteps were sporting freshly beaten welcome mats. She let herself into the small common area shared between numbers seven and eight with her spare key and climbed lightly up the stairs to the upper apartment. After she knocked, there was only a short pause before the door swung open readily—a far cry from the suspicious eye that had greeted her the last time she'd surprised Mrs. Flint with a visit.

"Harry," the woman said, stepping backwards immediately and beckoning her into the flat. "What a pleasant surprise. Come in."

"Hello, Merriam," Harry said, nodding her thanks as Mrs. Flint closed the door behind her. "Just thought I'd drop by and see how you were getting on. Is now a good time?"

She glanced into the living room and was surprised to see a handful of boxes lying in the center, most closed tight but one still open and half-full of newspapers. Mrs. Flint was dressed in practical working clothes and her dark hair was tied up in a kerchief. Was she in the middle of a project?

"Perfect timing, actually," the woman said, gesturing to the boxes. "I was just packing." She looked happy at the prospect and more than a little satisfied.

"You're moving out?" Harry blinked, surprised. She supposed she'd got the answer she came looking for, then. "Has Marcus managed to find a suitable position, then?"

Mrs. Flint adjusted the sleeves of her tunic somewhat nervously. "I… am not sure what Marcus's plans are. He has found a temporary position working as a… talent scout, I believe, for a Quidditch team. He plans to purchase his own flat, soon, with his inheritance, but I won't be joining him there."

"Oh?" Harry had been under the impression that Mrs. Flint joining her son was the end game to all of this.

"I like my independence," Merriam said, lifting her chin a fraction. "I like working at the clinic. I want to stay in the alleys, and Healer Hurst was kind enough to help me find a modest town house close to Maywell. I work full-time there, now, so it's within my means."

"That sounds lovely. Does Marcus know?" she asked, curious.

She nodded slowly. "He took some convincing. Marcus can visit whenever he likes, though, and it's better if my hus… if Marcus's father knows he lives alone and thinks he has no idea where I've gone. Marcus was prepared to cut all ties with his father, of course, but that man is… a dangerous enemy to have." She said the last in a whisper that was choked with worry for her son and fear for the specter of a man whose memory had not quite ceased to haunt her yet.

"I understand," she said, taking the older woman's hands in her own. "I think you're very selfless, protecting Fl—Marcus like that."

Merriam smiled tremulously at her. "My dear, it is you who are selfless. The chance to start over, to stand on my own feet—it's not something I dared to even hope for. I could not have managed it without your kindness."

"You would have managed it somehow," Harry said, smiling back. This was a much more lively version of Mrs. Flint than she'd met previously. She supposed she ought to stop referring to her as 'Mrs. Flint' in her head, in fact. Merriam was nothing like that shade of a person she'd led through the Floo over the holidays.

"Nevertheless, I thank you," Merriam said, leaning forward to embrace Harry warmly. Pulling back, she added, "Please send my regards to your cousin as well. I know it was some sort of favor between him and my son to put us in touch with you, but he was very kind about it."

"I'll make sure Rigel knows," she promised. "He's over in the Americas now, but I'll certainly tell him in my next letter."

"You two must be very close," Merriam mused, her eyes soft. "You look so alike. Almost like brothers. Marcus should have had a brother, only …" The woman sighed, a sad sound that was full of regret but free of defeat. "Well." With a determined grimace, the woman shook her head and turned toward the living room. "Here I am, prattling on, when there's work to be done."

"Would you like any help?" Harry offered automatically.

"Not much left to do," Merriam said. "I don't have much in the way of possessions: just what I've managed to accumulate recently. I admit I spent more of my earnings on patterned scarves than I ought to have, but _he_ always said they were a gaudy—" She broke off, clearing her throat. Glancing apologetically at Harry, she said, "I'm getting better about that. Sometimes it just slips out."

"It's quite all right," Harry said. Casting about for a change of subject, she remarked, "You cut your hair, didn't you? I didn't notice at first with the headscarf covering it."

"I did," Merriam said, smiling proudly. Harry supposed this was probably something else she'd not been allowed to do previously, or perhaps she simply felt the need for a physical change.

"It suits you," Harry said. She tried to think of something else to say, but at that moment a blur of movement startled her into whirling toward the kitchen. A grey and white spotted cat streaked from the doorway into the living room, where it dove beneath the couch and stayed crouched there, luminous eyes blinking distrustfully up at her.

"That's Tatty," Merriam said, suddenly sounding a tad nervous. "I know you didn't say whether you minded me getting a pet, but I found it shivering in the rain one night and I didn't know how to contact you, so—"

"It's all right," she assured her. "I don't mind at all. I should have suggested it, in fact; I know how boring it is living by yourself." She'd only done it for a few weeks during the Great Polyjuice Fail that spring, and even that had been enough to drive her a bit mad.

There came a knock at the door, and Merriam glanced at her swiftly, smiling apologetically, before opening it. There was a man standing there with his hat in his hands, looking perfectly ordinary and only the slightest bit familiar. Had she seen him before? She couldn't be sure, but there was something about the middle-aged man that tugged on her memory.

"Harry, this is Mr. Adam Quincy," Merriam said, gesturing to the man, who nodded to her politely. "He delivers medical supplies to Maywell, and he's kindly offered me the use of his cart to move my things to my new address. Adam, Harry is the one who's been kind enough to let me stay here for so long."

Harry smiled in a friendly way. "It was nice of you to help Merriam out like that," she said.

Mr. Quincy's cheeks turned slightly mottled. "Well, when I heard her Floo wasn't connected yet, I couldn't let her haul all them boxes alone. What are co-workers for, after all?"

Merriam looked equal parts grateful and slightly suspicious at his reasoning, but nodded along nonetheless. "Shall we, then? I've just about finished the last box, but perhaps Harry wouldn't mind carrying the others down with you while I wrap the last few things...?"

Harry moved toward one of the boxes in response. Mr. Quincy hurried forward to heft one as well and they trailed down the stairs. When they reached the street, Harry's eyes lit on a simple, low-bearing cart waiting by the curb and stumbled slightly.

"It's you," she said, wonder in her voice at the complexity of coincidence that she seemed unceasingly to be a party to. "That day in the alley, when I caught up to the boy who took my purse—to Jack. It was your cart that stopped him."

"I'm surprised you remember an old cart horse in the face of all that excitement," Mr. Quincy said, chuckling as he moved forward to set his box down.

She followed suit and turned to face him once she'd relieved her own burden. "Well, I admit I thought you were a cauldron merchant at the time, not a general delivery person."

The middle-aged man winced as he rubbed his back exaggeratedly. "That was a tough job. My muscles remember it well."

She cut herself off from asking why he didn't use magic to lighten the load a bit by reminding herself sharply that the man who delivered supplies to the clinic was, according to Mrs. Hurst, a Squib. If he were that deliveryman, her question would be entirely ignorant and insensitive.

Mr. Quincy led the way back upstairs, where they each grabbed another box. "Should we—ah—leave room for the furniture?" he asked, looking about the apartment at all the items that were obviously not prepped to be moved.

"No, the furniture stays," Merriam said. "It's all Harry's." Harry started to open her mouth, ready to tell the woman to take anything she'd like, as it had all been a gift from Leo anyway, but Merriam cut her off. "No, it's all right. I've been saving all these months, you know. I'm quite looking forward to going shopping for the necessities."

"If you need someone to haul them home …" Quincy offered, a bit shyly.

"Thank you, Adam," Merriam said, smiling gratefully. A thought seemed to enter her head and her smile widened brightly. "Oh! One moment." She hurried to the kitchen to retrieve what looked like a basket full of various baked goods—muffins, biscuits, scones: that sort of thing. "Here, I made this for you—to thank you, I mean, for being so kind." She held the basket out to Mr. Quincy, who nearly dropped the box he held out of distraction as he reached for it.

"You didn't have to," he said, not looking at all sincere as he eyed the basket of goodies with happy anticipation.

"It was no trouble," Merriam said, waving off his thanks.

"Even so," Quincy said, hooking the basket carefully through one forearm and resituating the box in his hands. "I'll savor it."

He headed down the stairs once more, and Harry followed him, trying hard not to wonder what exactly the relationship was between the two of them. Should she tell Flint his mother had a potential suitor? She shook her head mentally. Aside from a suicidal inclination to see the look on Flint's face when she told him he might be getting a stepfather, there was no point to it. By the distrust in her eyes and the careful way she treated the man, Merriam wasn't ready for a romantic relationship in any case. Harry could sort of relate, though for different reasons, obviously. Who had time for it, really?

When the cart was loaded, Merriam handed the key she'd been given over to Harry, who used it to lock up the apartment before following the other two downstairs for the final time.

"Would you like to see the new place?" Merriam asked once they were ready to set out. Harry considered. She supposed she didn't have much else to do—nothing that couldn't wait, at least. It would be nice to know where the woman ended up settled, in case she wanted to visit again.

"Sure," she said, smiling. "Lead the way."

Merriam carried Tatty the cat in a makeshift sort of carrier while Mr. Quincy hefted the cart by its long handles until only the wheels touched the ground and set off at a steady pace behind her. The older man was stronger than he looked; he didn't appear to be straining himself at all, despite the fact that the cart alone must weigh a good amount for its size. Belatedly, Harry plucked one of the heavier boxes from the back of the cart, figuring that if she was walking over with them anyway, she might as well pitch in. She'd levitate the whole cart if she didn't think it would be incredibly insulting to a man who made his living hauling materials.

Her arms ached a bit by the time they reached their destination—a quiet little cul-de-sac tucked off of Pendragon Alley, not far at all from the intersection with Wormwood Row—but she'd carried heavier crates of potions farther.

The townhouse was a little rundown on the outside, but it was clean, and the interior appeared to be in good repair. It didn't take long to deposit Merriam's things in the empty kitchen. Harry helped her unpack her utensils while Mr. Quincy shifted somewhat awkwardly in the doorway, watching Merriam arrange the bowls and pans to her liking. The man had an uncertain look on his face, but his voice came out relatively even when he said, "Do you want to grab a bite once you've unpacked a bit? Since you haven't got much in the way of groceries yet, I mean. It'll be good to keep your strength up if you're going furniture shopping later."

Merriam stilled her movements and flicked her eyes his way without moving the rest of her head an iota. "I've taken up a fair amount of your time already, Adam."

"I don't mind," the man said, twisting his cap between his hands.

"Well, I do need to eat something," Merriam said slowly. Her eyes came to rest on Harry, who was both pretending not to listen and keenly waiting for the first opportunity to casually excuse herself. "Harry, are you hungry?"

"I had a big breakfast," Harry lied, smiling gratefully. "I also wanted to stop in and see Healer Hurst before she leaves for lunch, so I'd better be heading out, actually. It was great to see your new place, Merriam. I'm sure you'll be very happy here."

Merriam folded her into a quick hug and said, "Thank you for all of your help, Harry. Would you mind doing me one more favor?"

"Name it," Harry said easily. She liked Merriam a lot, and it wasn't as though she was actually going to the clinic.

"I made muffins for Healer Hurst to thank her for helping me find a place to rent," Merriam said, digging in one of the boxes to pull out a basket, the contents of which were covered with a tartan cloth. "I was going to take them in tomorrow for my shift, but I'm worried they'll be stale by then. Since you're going there anyway, would you mind… ?"

Harry smiled ruefully at her luck. It looked as though she'd be visiting Mrs. Hurst after all. "Of course," she said, taking the basket. "It's no trouble at all."

She bid Merriam and Mr. Quincy a quick farewell and let herself out into the street. She had taken only a couple of steps toward the mouth of the cul-de-sac when she spotted an entirely obvious figure loitering by Quincy's empty cart. "Seriously?" she said, affecting an exasperated grimace that threatened to turn into a grin at the innocent smile that was flashed in her direction.

"Well, fancy meeting you here," Leo said, entirely disingenuous. She wondered which of his ears had seen her on the way over. Then again, they weren't far from Pendragon Alley, where construction for the tournament was steadily increasing in scale. He might have spotted her himself, if he was in the area. "Didn't know you were in the market for a second place. Trying to buy up all the real estate in the alleys, are you?"

"You got me," she deadpanned. "I'm planning on building my palace complex here, and once I have all the land in a five-mile radius I can make the entire area unplottable and live out my days the sultan to an invisible kingdom. I might even get a harem." She had no idea why those words were coming out of her mouth. Perhaps the Dominion Jewel was a bad influence on her mental processes.

"Let me know when you start taking applications," Leo said, amused.

"Girls only." She sniffed, brushing past him with her basket of muffins held primly before her.

He fell into step beside her, peering at her haul curiously. "What's in there? Kittens?"

She gave him an odd look. "Why would I be carrying a basket of kittens?"

"It's no less valid than any other guess," Leo said, grinning sideways at her. "Come on, don't leave me in suspense. Is it flowers?"

"I doubt Margo would appreciate the competition," she said, rolling her eyes. "They're muffins, if you must know. I'm taking them to your mother at the clinic."

Leo's eyebrows shot upwards. He gave her a long, somewhat fascinated look, then said, "You bake."

She spluttered. " _No._ I don't. They're not from me."

"They'd be from the mysterious brunette whose boxes you were carrying, then?" he asked, smirking at the annoyed flush that adorned her cheeks.

"She's not mysterious," Harry said. "She's nice."

"Funny that I've never met her before," Leo said idly.

"She keeps to herself."

"She seems to know Quincy pretty well," Leo pointed out. "You, too, which is odd considering how rarely you come this far into the alleys."

"She works at the clinic." Harry sighed. There was really no point hiding anything from Leo. He always found out eventually, and since Merriam's identity had been well established at that point, she didn't need to hide her presence anymore.

Leo's bright hazel eyes lit up in realization. "I knew Ma was keeping something from me. She's been shifty when I drop by Maywell of late. Imagine, keeping an employee secret from her own son. I'd accuse her of trying to cheat on her taxes if the clinic wasn't exempt from tithing."

Though he didn't sound seriously put out by it, she still felt it necessary to exonerate his mother from the accusation of dishonesty. "I asked her to keep Merriam's presence there quiet," she told Leo, glancing away from his intrigued expression to adjust the muffin basket. They were heavier than she thought muffins ought to be. Perhaps they were of the denser variety, like pumpkin.

"I see," Leo said, his voice a sly, musing drawl. "Would this Merriam also be the reason I've been barred from your apartment for the last six months? I noticed your cart of boxes was traveling from that direction instead of from the upper alleys."

She resigned herself to Leo being entirely smug the rest of the afternoon. His sense of superiority was always worst when he figured out the answer to something that had been puzzling him. "She's my aunt. I got her a job at the clinic and let her stay in my apartment until she had enough saved to live on her own."

"Your aunt is a Muggle, not a Squib," Leo said archly.

She didn't know how he knew about Lily's sister. Or how he knew Merriam was a Squib. Perhaps his magic had told him. Sometimes Leo just knew things about people from glancing at them—something that was likely related to his mother's ability to identify a lie the moment it was told in her vicinity, she suspected.

"As far as it concerns _you_ ," she said pointedly, "she is my Aunt Merriam and she is utterly unremarkable in every way."

"She's in trouble," Leo surmised, speaking quietly—almost to himself. "Ma kept her from me because she knew I'd be interested in a woman living in your apartment and didn't want me drawing attention to her with my curiosity. You could have just told me, of course, and I'd have left her alone."

"It isn't any of your business," she said sternly. "Merriam needed complete anonymity to feel safe. We didn't know who might be looking for her or how hard they would search. The fewer people aware of her, the better."

"We?" Now Leo's look was pointedly questioning.

"Don't worry about it," she said, smiling in a way she knew would annoy him. He just hated not knowing things.

"Fine," Leo sighed. Then he brightened. "This means your flat is free game again, right?"

"Why do you have such a fascination with my flat?" she asked, pausing before the door to Maywell clinic and raising an eyebrow imperiously until Leo opened the door obligingly.

"It's not the flat that interests me," Leo said, an odd smirk on his face that caused her to frown momentarily as she attempted to place the emotion that had prompted it.

She opened her mouth to ask for him to clarify his comment, but shut it once more as the tense atmosphere of the lobby they'd walked into registered in her subconscious. She looked around, but didn't see anything immediately out of place. There were no patients bleeding out on the floor, just a handful of Healers collected grimly around a door on the far side of the room—the one that led to Healer Hurst's office, in fact.

Leo started forward, wariness fighting with concern in his eyes, but Janice, who stood closest to the office door, with an ear cocked toward the crack, held up a hand to forestall any questions. Harry turned her ear toward the sounds coming through the door and made out Healer Hurst's voice ranting in an agitated manner that didn't speak well of whomever she addressed herself to.

"—must be something you can do. She's late-stage, for pity's sake, she _can't_ _wait_ that long," Mrs. Hurst was saying, her voice a cocktail of anger and stringent disgust, laced with acute desperation. "I put her name on the list months ago. Don't tell me you haven't had any come in since then."

The voice that answered her was edged with the distinctively disembodied quality that accompanied transmission via Floo. "You have to understand, Healer Hurst; your clinic is an outreach of this hospital, and while the work you're doing is important, it doesn't contribute to the hospital as a whole. The patients here in our wards have to be given priority—"

"That's bollocks," Mrs. Hurst hissed. "Whether or not a patient can _pay_ doesn't determine what medicines they need to _live_. Now I have an eight-year-old girl about to die of a curable disease because you gave the potion she needs to someone whose case could have waited the four months you're telling me it's going to take to get another dose in."

"That's not the—"

"Tell me which part of that is incorrect, _Healer_?" Mrs. Hurst snapped.

There was a distorted sigh, and then the voice said, a little quieter. "I'm sorry, Healer Hurst. It's hospital policy to prioritize patients in-house over those being treated elsewhere."

"It's a hospital!" Mrs. Hurst exploded. "The only policy should be saving people's lives."

"I'm sorry," the voice said again. Whoever it was sounded a little sorry, but mostly they just sounded tired. "Look, have you tried contacting Burke? I know he has sources that can procure the potion in couple of weeks or so."

"If we could afford to buy the potion from the likes of Horace Burke we wouldn't need the hospital's subsidy," Mrs. Hurst said. "I'd try brewing it myself if I could afford the bloody ingredients."

"That potion requires a license to—"

"You think I don't know that?" Mrs. Hurst shot back. She took a deep, audible breath before saying, quieter, "There must be something. Appeal to one of the big donors. Tell them there's a little girl who desperately needs an expensive potion. Tell them they could save a life. Someone will be charitable."

The voice sounded skeptical. "I'm sorry, Healer Hurst, but we don't generally approach our sponsors on individual cases. Even if we did… she's nobody, don't you see? No one is going to sponsor a nameless orphan—there's just no prestige in it."

"She's not _nameless_ , you—you—" Mrs. Hurst sounded close to tears. "Her name is Cora. She has blonde hair and green eyes and she's _brave_ —"

"Healer Hurst, I'm sorry but I need to get back to my station," the voice said. They sounded awfully uncomfortable. "I will contact you immediately if something changes in the wait list or the status of the backorder."

There was the sound of a frustrated growl and then silence for several long minutes. Harry, Leo, and the clinic staff slowly left their vigil by the door and drifted toward the front desk with varying expressions of disappointment and anger.

At the other end of the lobby, a door creaked open slowly and a head of red curls tied up with a blue ribbon peeked out at them, blinking wide eyes curiously. It was Margo. Harry forced a smile for the little girl, who smiled back and slipped across the room to stand among them. "What did the supply lady say?" she asked, looking up at them all with the sort of inexplicable hope that came to the young without reason. "Are they gonna bring Cora her potion?"

"Not today, Margo," one of the Healers said, summoning a brave smile for the girl.

Margo frowned in a way that was both assessing and confused. "They better bring it soon. Cora can't move so much anymore." She heaved a small sigh and shook her head back and forth. "Grown-ups never do anything fast enough." She left them to re-enter the room she'd stepped out of, the one her friend Cora was laid up in, Harry supposed.

Once the door was closed behind her, Harry turned to the Healers with a frown. "What's wrong with Cora?"

"Seifer's Syndrome," one of them said. The tone was bleak.

She winced. She had read about it only once in one of Archie's schoolbooks, but the description stuck with her, horrible even in a sea of similarly horrifying descriptions of magical diseases. Seifer's Syndrome, named for the man who first contracted it, wasn't common in adults, as it was caused by a mutation in the development of a magical core. In those it afflicted, the magical core developed fully in terms of power and stability but failed to become self-contained. Instead of remaining in a concentrated sphere as a healthy core would, the mutated core spilled its magic into the patient's physical body, in some cases, or into their mental landscape in others. Rarely, it could spill over in both the physical and mental realms, but those cases did not generally survive long enough to be diagnosed and treated.

Over time, the saturation of magic into the muscles and sinews degenerated their physical structure, resulting in the slow loss of mobility and finally in the dissolution of major organ systems. It was fatal, if left untreated, but there was a cure. A potion existed which, once introduced to the drinker's system, swept the body and collected all traces of magic from the physical cells, bonding to the magic and drawing it together into the form it ought to take naturally. The potion acted as an attractant that kept the magic consolidated once it had cohered, bringing the magic back to the core like a magnet attracting filaments each time thereafter that the patient drew the magic out to use it. She knew it acted in the mind similarly, which probably made the potion incredibly difficult to brew. Potions that affected the mind were always more complex than those that affected only the physical realm.

From what she knew of Seifer's Syndrome, the fact that Cora had already begun to lose mobility was not good. If the magic had progressed that far… she didn't have long if they wanted to save her heart and lungs. The worst part of Seifer's Syndrome was that magic saturated the patient's body to the extent that adding any additional magic—like Healing magic—only accelerated the degenerative process.

When Mrs. Hurst came out into the lobby, she had the look of someone who was consciously stopping themselves from doing something they might regret. Harry couldn't blame the woman; she was angry, too.

"What do we do?" Janice asked. "Is that it?"

"No," Mrs. Hurst said sharply. "We find another way."

"She doesn't have much longer," another Healer, Carol, said quietly.

"I know that," Mrs. Hurst said. She frowned deeply, then said, "I'll have to contact my husband. He doesn't have a license for it, but if I ask him to he'll brew it for me. Perhaps he can convince the Guild to sponsor the ingredients without telling them what he needs them for."

"I'll donate the cost of the ingredients," Leo said, his tone brooking no argument. "It'll come from the Court's funds. We're going to turn a good profit on the tournament. We can spare the gold."

Mrs. Hurst sent her son a grateful smile. "That's a huge help, Leo, thank you."

Harry wasn't sure she should speak up—she didn't know how the potion was brewed or what techniques it might call for, and she didn't want to give anyone false hope—but she felt she owed it to her conscience to at least try. "Do you have the recipe?" she asked.

Mrs. Hurst looked regretfully at her. "We don't. I'm sorry, Harry, but I don't think you can brew this one. It's supposed to be incredibly complicated; its production is strictly limited to those masters licensed for it. I've heard it's unusually volatile and very easy to get wrong."

She nodded thoughtfully. Her reservations made sense, but on the other hand… the same could be said of Aconite's Alleviation, which she had unofficially experimented with for several months in her second year. Volatile potions could be made less so by the addition of more magic, which she had in plenty. That, combined with her unusually advanced capability in wandless brewing techniques, meant she thought it unlikely that the potion would prove impossible for her to attempt. "I'd like to try," she said, setting her chin firmly. "I'll look through the guild's archives and see if I can't find the recipe. If it looks too difficult, I won't attempt it, but if I think I can manage, I'll give it a shot. I have a series of failsafes built into my lab," she assured the Healer, who looked doubtful. "I won't be in any danger. If it doesn't work, you still have Master Hurst."

"You'll get in trouble if anyone finds out you brewed it without a license," Mrs. Hurst said, looking troubled.

"Not as much trouble as your husband would," she said, smiling a bit wryly. "They can't strip me of a mastership I don't have, and they can't revoke a guild membership I don't have. The most they can do is fine me under the Unlicensed Distribution Act, and that's assuming they find out."

The Healer sighed, her eyes softening a bit. "It's admirable of you to want to help, Harry," she said. After a long moment of consideration, she added, "I suppose I can't stop you if you want to try. Please, be careful."

"I will," she promised. "I'll go to the guild now, and owl you with the estimated completion date if I find a viable recipe." She really hoped it wasn't something like Polyjuice, which had to brew a month before it was effective. She didn't think Cora had that long.

She left immediately, Leo on her heels.

"Do you really think you can do this?" he asked, looking equal parts hopeful and concerned.

"I won't know until I see the recipe," she said.

They fell into a solemn silence as they walked up toward the upper alleys. They passed the tournament site, where construction seemed to be well underway, but Harry didn't spare the preparations a glance. All her thoughts were focused on how she was going to get the potion completed. If she couldn't do it, could she contact Professor Snape and beg him to attempt it? Would he be willing to go to so much trouble for her at this early point in their relationship? Perhaps she could approach him via letter as Rigel, and say she needed the potion for a friend. She could also try contacting Madam Pomfrey at Hogwarts, to see if she knew any Healers who had access to the potion. She could even get Krait to set up a meeting with Horace Burke and pay for the potion outright, no matter that she could imagine the outrageous price such a potion would no doubt come at after Burke's significant 'convenience fee' was taken into consideration. Then again, the voice from the Floo had intimated that it would take upwards of a week for Burke to get hold of one. If she could brew it herself, Cora would get it all the quicker.

There were a handful of people moving about in the foyer, probably on their way back from lunch. She and Leo tried to look unobtrusive as they navigated the guild's corridors; it was lucky that academics tended to ignore things that didn't relate in some way to their own pursuits, as no one looked twice at the dusty teenagers who slipped into the guild's library with innocent expressions.

The archivist was at his desk, but they simply waved him off when he asked in a bored voice if they needed help finding anything. She'd spent plenty of time in the library during her internship and knew well enough how it was organized.

The potion they were looking for was called, unimaginatively, Seifer's Solution. Potioneers did love their simplistic alliterations, she thought, almost fondly. It would be filed alphabetically under the subheading of Medical Potions, so she crouched down near the S's and ran her finger along the row impatiently.

 _Sand-skin Smoother… Scooner's Remedy… Shrinking Solution?_ Annoyed, she glanced down the rest of the row. They weren't out of order; the recipe she was looking for simply wasn't there.

She stood and gave Leo a worried look. "They don't have a copy."

"Impossible," Leo said, shaking his head. "They have everything, even rare and highly restricted… oh. It must be classified as restricted material. It'll be locked in a case behind the archivist's desk."

She groaned. "I suppose you have to be a member of the guild to retrieve restricted material."

"That, or the son of a very lazy Aldermaster who notoriously hates fetching things for himself," Leo said, grinning slyly. 

"I knew I brought you for a reason," Harry said, grinning back.

"You didn't bring me, I accompanied you," Leo corrected her.

"You can win the argument if you get us that recipe," she said, nudging him toward the end of the aisle.

Leo pasted on his most ingratiating expression and approached the archivist with a self-deprecating smile. "It looks like I need your help after all," he said, affecting a conspiratorial grin. "My father sent me to procure a copy of a recipe, but I can't find it in the general stacks."

"Which one?" the archivist asked, blinking eyes that looked as if they'd spent too many hours straining in low lighting.

"Seifer's Solution," Leo said, managing to sound both confidently informed and utterly uninterested at the same time. "He's researching the socio-economic impact of using cost-ineffective ingredients in vital medical cures and realized he doesn't know the exact quantities of ingredients needed for this one—I reckon it's pretty notorious for being expensive, cause Dad says his survey would be incomplete without it."

"He's right, it's well known for its costly preparation," the archivist sniffed. "The recipe is restricted, however. I can't give it to non-guild members."

Leo raised an eyebrow and spoke slowly, as though he questioned the archivist's intelligence. "It's not for me. It's for my father. The Aldermaster. He's in the middle of a very important experiment that absolutely cannot be left unattended."

The archivist frowned. "Even so, it's not protocol to release restricted materials to unaffiliated people."

"You're not releasing it to me," Leo said patiently, "You're releasing it to him. I'm just carrying it. You can release restricted material via owl post if a master currently abroad requests it, can you not?"

"Well, yes," the archivist said.

"Well, it's the same," Leo said, his expression clearly conveying how obvious he found the situation. "I'm just the owl this time. He's authorized me to sign in his name and everything, so your records won't even be wrong."

They would, in fact, be wrong, but the archivist didn't know that and he looked a little reassured at the prospect. "I suppose… if he really can't be interrupted from his experiment… "

"You know how he is," Leo sighed. "Always working. The number of times I've had to come in here and fetch his documents… well, I suppose allowances must be made for genius."

The archivist smiled in a way that said he commiserated with Leo's situation. "That's true. You're a very supportive son, Mr. Hurst."

"Just Leo," he said, now affecting a sheepish shrug. "I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot more of each other by the time Father's project is complete."

"No doubt," the man said, reaching into his belt pouch for a set of keys.

Not five minutes later, they walked out of the library with a copy of the potion tucked safely in Harry's bag. She couldn't quite believe that had worked, but Leo, the cocky player, was _whistling_ as they exited the guild.

"Stop that," she said, swatting him in annoyance. "That's the most cliché sign of wrongdoing ever."

"What was that?" Leo cupped a hand to his ear. "Did I hear a 'thank you, Leo'?"

She had to smile at that. "Thank you, Leo."

"You're welcome, Harry," he said. He glanced around them, then ducked into a little side alley before they reached the junction with Diagon. "Shall we see what the fuss is about, then?"

She pulled out the parchment and unrolled it, grimacing when it revealed itself to be much longer than the average recipe. She could see a diagram toward the middle of the text that depicted a cauldron divided into three distinct horizontal levels. Layered brewing meant Indirect Stirring—no wonder it was considered difficult. She scanned down a few more paragraphs and saw yet another cauldron divided into two separate parts. She frowned, skimming to the final few steps where there were instructions for combining the two cauldrons into a larger cauldron before the last step. "Simultaneous brewing," she said, feeling like whistling herself. That was not something she'd seen before. She flattered herself that she was relatively experienced at brewing multiple potions simultaneously, as she found it maximized her time in the lab, but there was no doubt she would have to memorize the steps and timing verbatim before even attempting it. There would be no time to double-check the recipe once she began this monstrosity.

"Bicorn horn," Leo groaned. "Dragon's teeth, a _phoenix feather?_ Does this make a potion or a wand?"

Her eyes flicked up to the ingredients, grimacing as she read the first few and began mentally calculating cost. "I suppose the potion requires a large concentration of magically saturated ingredients in order to make the potion even close to brewable for the average wizard. The alchemical equation they reference for calculating imbuing durations has one of the highest coefficients I've seen outside of complex transfigurations."

"I'm not going to pretend I understand what that means," Leo said, eyeing her sidelong. "I understand this, though." He pointed a tanned finger to the last ingredient listed and her heart skipped a beat.

Basilisk scale. The potion called for a _basilisk scale_. No wonder it was on backorder. Even with the immense influx of basilisk parts recently on the market, they were still hoarded jealously in the knowledge that it might well be the last influx this century. The guild had what scales they'd decided to purchase at her discounted rate a year ago, but she doubted they passed them out like confetti at a parade. She didn't even know how many they had purchased, in fact. She hadn't ever asked Snape, who had been put in charge of the allocations.

"My da says there are some basilisk parts set aside at the guild for experimental use, but there's a lengthy application process for masters to get access to them," Leo said.

"It's okay," she said. "I have one."

Leo frowned, but then his eyes lit up with remembrance and landed on her hands. "The ring… "

"It's a full scale, so it will work," she assured him, fingering the place it rested through her gloves. She didn't need it anymore, she told herself. She had begun wearing it to remind her of the price of prideful magic, but now she had a demented megalomaniacal rock living in her head—she didn't think she was liable to forget anytime soon. It would do more good in this potion than it did on her finger.

"We just have to get the rest of the ingredients, then," Leo said, taking a deep breath. "It says it takes thirteen hours to complete. Can you work that long?"

"Sure," she said, steeling herself. She hadn't ever brewed so many hours in a row, not even using the time-turner. She could stay awake much longer than thirteen hours, however, so she told herself she could do this, too. A lot of the time would probably be monitoring the potions as they simmered, in any case. It wasn't impossible.

Leo looked at her determined expression and smiled fondly. "I'll help." At her surprised look, he huffed a laugh. "My father is the Aldermaster, Harry. I do know a thing or two about potions. Even if this one is hideously complicated, I can at least chop and shred and take direction."

"A second set of eyes would be great," she admitted, already imagining the difficulty she was going to have in monitoring two unfamiliar brews at once. If she made a mistake, she could ask Snape as Rigel for a couple of the basilisk scales he'd set aside for her—or ask to use one of the scales he'd been given for experimentation, even. It would be a costly delay, however; she'd rather get the thing right the first time.

"Let's track down the ingredients today, then, and after a good night's sleep we can tackle the potion tomorrow," Leo said, his eyes swiftly tracing the ingredient list in a way that told her he was memorizing it.

She nodded. As much as she wanted to jump into the potion as soon as possible for Cora's sake, she knew it was irresponsible. She needed to be fully charged if she was going to set her mind to something for so many hours without break.

They set off for Tate's apothecary, though Harry was not optimistic enough to assume that would be their only stop that afternoon. The list of ingredients was as varied as it was extensive. There was no way Tate could have everything they needed, especially as a couple of the ingredients—such as mermaid tail skin—were decidedly uncommon in strictly savory shops.

It was a long afternoon by the time they finished chasing down unlikely ingredients in the seediest of Knockturn Alley's supply stores. They got all they needed, in the end, though Harry was still wincing at the prices on some of the items. She was certain the acromantula fang was overpriced even considering the danger involved in procuring it.

Harry went home to begin familiarizing herself with the convoluted recipe while Leo took off toward the lower alleys to make sure the right people knew he would be unavailable for most of the following day. Things could proceed apace without his direct involvement, but only as long as the key members of the Court of the Rogue's inner circle were well informed in his absence.

She told her parents over dinner that night that she was going to be working on a project in her potions lab with a friend tomorrow and that it was very important they were not disturbed.

James eyed her with all the suspicion of a career Auror and said sharply, "What friend would that be?"

"Leo," she said between hurried bites of green beans. "It's a potions project, and we think it'll take about thirteen hours to finish, so I could really use his help."

"Oh, you're just going to be spending thirteen hours alone in the basement with an older boy, is that all, Harry?" James asked, the sarcasm not saving his almost terrified expression.

"You can come watch if you want, Dad," she said, a bit cruelly. "Oh, wait. You'll be at work. I reckon you'll miss all the fun, then."

He choked and coughed into his potatoes for at least two minutes, which was well worth the spluttering demands to know what had happened to his innocent little fawn that poured from his end of the table for the rest of dinner.

"Add and I will check on them throughout the day," Remus said, not seeming too concerned. "Just to make sure they eat and drink," he added at Harry's unimpressed look.

She smiled and shrugged. "As long as you don't interrupt the brewing process," she allowed.

"Is that what they're calling it these days?" Sirius muttered into his pork.

That, of course, set James off again and Harry had to wonder why her family was made up of such dramatic idiots. Gryffindors, she supposed, pushing the remainder of her vegetables into her mouth thoughtfully. She swallowed, wiped her mouth with a napkin, then stood. "I've got to finish memorizing all the steps tonight," she said, picking up her plate to take it to the kitchen. "Thanks for dinner, Mum, Sirius."

She hurried up to her room and got back to work, making extensive notations on a spare piece of parchment about what order she ought to prep ingredients in and how she ought to stage the two cauldrons so that the entire process could be streamlined efficiently. It was a tedious task, but by the time she turned out the lights she felt as least reasonably confident that she wouldn't get lost in the recipe the next day. It might take all of her impressive powers of concentration and every hard-earned skill she had under her belt, but she would complete this potion to perfection. Nothing else was tolerable.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

Leo Flooed into her house at seven am sharp, dressed for the first time that she could recall in actual brewing robes complete with gloves, sleeve-catchers, and a face mask dangling from his belt—in case the whole thing quite literally blew up in their faces, she supposed.

"Are those fire-retardant boots?" she asked, looking down at his feet with approval.

"I just asked the store clerk which brand Harriet Potter prefers," Leo said modestly.

"Very funny," she said with a half-grin. "Come on, I'll show you the setup. I've arranged everything in a double-assembly-line fashion so that we won't be stepping on one another's toes while moving ingredients from workspace to cauldron. I'll go over the process with you in detail before we begin, but basically I'm just going to be testily ordering you to do things all day, so sorry in advance for that. I've been told I become very single-minded while brewing, and I don't want you to take offense if I seem terse."

Leo chuckled. "You won't scare me off, lass. Just make sure to yell at me before I mess up—I'd rather my ego be bruised than the potion be jeopardized."

She smiled gratefully. "Thanks. It's right this way."

They passed James on their way to the basement stairs. He was on his way to the kitchen for breakfast, but he paused to eye them forbiddingly as they descended. "Be careful," he called after them.

"We will," she called back. "You can check in when you get home from work—I don't doubt we'll still be at it."

James mumbled something about her saying such things on purpose before sulking his way into the kitchen. She sometimes wondered how her father had become an Auror when he was just a giant child, but then she thought maybe he played up his childish nature on purpose when he was at home. Perhaps it was a form of relaxation therapy after eight or nine hours of complete seriousness at his job.

Refocusing her attention on the task at hand, she ushered Leo into the basement and closed the door to minimize potential distractions. The last thing she wanted to do was upend something by mistake because Addy or Remus had made a loud noise upstairs.

"Your dad doesn't seem to like me much," Leo commented.

"He doesn't like any boys who are friends with me," she said, waving off his concern. "Unfortunately you're the only one besides Archie, so far, so you bear all of that protective animosity squarely. I'm sure he'll like you better once I make other male friends."

Leo sent her a look that was hard to decipher, but didn't comment. Instead, he cast his eyes around the room to note the placement of everything she'd set up. "Shall we get started then?"

She explained everything that was going to happen and which order it needed to happen in, so that he would have at least some idea as to what the potions should be looking like at various stages. She had to explain what the tubes affixed to the insides of the cauldrons were, as Leo had apparently not progressed far enough in his studies with the Aldermaster to have learned about layered potions, but he picked up the concept quickly enough. She had already cast the transparency charms over the outsides of the cauldrons, so that they'd be able to monitor all five layers—two in one cauldron, three in the other—without difficulty. She thought wryly that it was a good thing she had so much linseed oil on hand. Honestly, who'd ever heard of a five-layered potion before?

With a prolonged Tempus Charm hanging in the air above the cauldrons, they began. At first it was the same as any other potion; she whipped up the base and added ingredients at an easy rhythm, keeping an eye on the clock but otherwise unstressed. Once she was a ways into the first potion, she began the second, adjusting the heat on each cauldron as necessary and calling out the next ingredient to Leo as she went. He supplied her smoothly with everything she asked for and even anticipated the switching of stirring implements where necessary.

As she began building the layers, however, things became more challenging. While the two cauldrons were within easy reaching distance of one another, the stages that required both cauldrons to be Indirectly Stirred at the same moment were still incredibly awkward. It took a ridiculous amount of concentration to focus the wandless magic in her left hand in a clockwise motion while making the layer she was affecting with her right hand move anti-clockwise. If she hadn't spent a good half-hour practicing that exact feat the night before with a couple of bowls of water, she was certain she would have messed it up royally.

Apart from the stirring issues, keeping the layers straight in her head was more difficult than she thought. It would help if the layers were a significantly different color from one another, but they all ended up a greenish-greyish haze despite the linseed oil keeping them from mixing. If she ever annotated the recipe in her own compendium, she would suggest brewers add a harmless food coloring to the different layers in order to make the mental compartmentalization easier. As it was, she had to stop herself twice from putting ingredients into the wrong tube in the three-layered cauldron. In retrospect she ought to have labeled the tubes with the color corresponding to the food coloring she ought to have added to the layers so that she didn't almost accidently add the fairy wings to the middle layer instead of the bottom layer.

Leo was a lifesaver. He adjusted the heat underneath the cauldrons a dozen times over in between handling ingredients, and without him there to provide emergency warming or cooling charms she didn't know how she'd have been able to adjust the speed at which the different layers were evolving so that their reactions all came to a close within the same fifteen-minute window.

They worked until their arms and fingers ached, and then they kept working. Remus came down to feed them lunch at some point, but Harry barely remembered eating a sandwich mindlessly out of someone's hand as she feverishly counted the pulses of wandless magic she was sending into the bottom and middle layers of the cauldron before her. She only remembered how her neck ached as she craned it awkwardly away from the cauldron while she chewed, acutely aware that one accidental drop of her spittle in the cauldron meant the entire process had been a waste.

At the nine-hour mark, she slowed her briskly robotic motions and allowed herself to breathe deeply, blinking the cauldron smoke from her green contacts. "We're out of ingredients," Leo said. She looked over to see him leaning tiredly against a stool.

She smiled, equally exhausted. "That's it," she said, stepping back from the cauldrons almost regretfully—like a mother stepping away from her child at its first play date. "The potions are entirely in synch now. They have to be kept at constant heat for the next two hours, then the layers are dissolved and they simmer another hour, then the two cauldrons finally get combined. After an hour of letting the mixture fully evolve, it gets taken off the fire and the brewing process is officially ended. It has to set up overnight until it congeals, so as long as everything is smooth sailing from here, it should be ready to drink at about eight o'clock tomorrow morning."

Leo smiled slowly. "You did it."

"We did it," Harry corrected him. Nevertheless he was right. The hard part was over. It was just a matter of monitoring things from there on out. She stretched her arms and shoulders, then cracked her neck and back with a grimace. "I can see why no one ever brews this thing. It's a monster. I'd charge a fortune for it, too, if it wasn't a life-saving cure to a disease that affects _children_."

"Don't worry about that now," Leo told her. "You did it. Cora is going to be fine."

She still scowled unhappily at the idea that other kids could die of something curable just because the treatment was difficult to make. She understood on some level that the Ministry couldn't just force all the talented potions brewers to spend their days making grueling potions like this for the betterment of society—no one would aspire to become a skilled brewer, if that was their fate—but on another level she found it very sad. When she had recovered from the ordeal of making Seifer's Solution, she would do research on what other potions were hard to come by simply because they were difficult to make. Maybe she couldn't force other Potions masters into slaving away over a cauldron for charity, but she could certainly do her part. She had promised, after all, that she would try to make more of a difference in the world.

Speaking of… "Leo, I was serious about teaching the alley kids Potions, you know," she said, glancing over at him again.

Leo favored her with a grateful look. "I thought you might be. I've talked with the ones who've shown an interest, and I thought after the tournament was over we could set up a class at the Phoenix. Nothing fancy, just an informational session to anyone who's interested in learning some good-to-have knowledge about potions in general. You may get some adults there, too."

"Sounds good," she said, nodding. "Just give me a time and place." She looked over the cauldrons once more, adjusted the fire slightly on one of them, then nodded again, this time to herself. "Leo, I think I can take it from here." When he looked ready to protest, she held up a hand. "No, I mean it. I know you have things to take care of in the alleys this close to the tournament. I'll finish up the tedious parts and bring the potion down to the clinic tomorrow morning, first thing."

Leo looked torn, but he could see the sense in her words. There was no reason for both of them to waste their time doing what one person could do well enough. "All right. Thank you, Harry. I'll see you tomorrow morning at Maywell."

He picked up his mask and gloves from where they had been discarded early on and headed for the stairs. "Sorry I can't see you out," she called. She wasn't so confident that she'd risk leaving her cauldrons unattended.

"I remember where the Floo is," he said. Looking back over his shoulder, he added, "If you hear a scream, though, just assume I met your dad on the way out."

She chuckled after him, but it was interrupted by a fierce yawn. Time for a Pepperup Potion, it seemed. She downed one from her personal stash, claimed a stool, and sat, watching the cauldrons simmer with a sort of bored attention for an hour or so. Footsteps on the stairs made her look over and smile when she saw her dad coming down with a plate of food.

"Brought you some dinner," he said, looking curiously around at the mess they'd made. She supposed she should have been cleaning some of the workspaces while she waited, but she was tired. "Your friend leave already?"

She smiled. "You only brought one plate when you thought he was still here?"

James grinned. "I don't know what you mean. So, how'd it go, then? Save the world?"

"Something like that," she said, grinning proudly. "It's not finished yet, but in my expert opinion it qualifies as a success."

"Is it another one you invented?" James asked, peering at the two cauldrons with a distant sort of interest. "I've never seen someone do two cauldrons at once—do you really need so much of it?"

"I didn't invent this one. I'm making it for a friend. And it's actually two different potions at the moment," Harry said, shaking her head. "They're just similar in color. You have to make the layers separately, then add them together at the end."

"Like when you make spaghetti," James said, nodding seriously. "So which is the noodles and which is the sauce?"

She laughed. "I'll let you know when I figure that out."

"All right, well, I won't disturb your important work," James said, setting down the plate. He fished in his pocket for a moment and came out with a letter. "This came for you while you were down here. In case you have a spare second to give it a read. I think it's from that friend of yours—the Muggleborn."

"Hermione," she murmured, accepting the letter with a frown. "Thanks, Dad. I'll write a reply once I'm finished down here." She supposed it must be an answer to the letter she'd sent agreeing to meet up with the girl.

He left her to her work, and Harry checked on the cauldrons once more before tearing open the letter with her fingers.

 _Dear Harry,_

 _I'm so glad you got my last letter. You took longer than usual to reply, so I wasn't sure. I think meeting up in Diagon Alley is a fantastic idea; I don't very often make the trip, and when I do it's primarily for school supplies. It would be lovely to just explore the shops at a leisurely pace and see what we find._

 _How's tomorrow at eleven o'clock? I know you mentioned getting ice cream, but I thought we could walk around a while first and then get lunch. I'll meet you at Fortescue's all the same if you aren't busy._

 _Your friend,_

 _Hermione_

Harry sighed as she folded the letter and tucked it away. She had suggested meeting in Diagon for ice cream as a sort of neutral activity that wouldn't involve anyone's parents or family—the fewer people she had to act like Archie around, the better. Although Archie had suggested distracting his friend with Addy, Harry wasn't quite ready to stoop to using her baby sister as a social shield.

She debated writing and telling Hermione that tomorrow wasn't a good day, but she honestly wanted to get the meeting over with. She was dropping off the potion tomorrow at nine, anyway, so she'd have plenty of time before eleven to psych herself up for the appointment. She mentally composed a quick note of acceptance while she scarfed down her dinner. She wondered briefly if she ought to warn Leo that she would be meeting a friend in Diagon tomorrow, but, really, why should she? Her friends were her own business, and just because he'd seemed a bit put out at her having lunch with Lestrange without telling him first didn't mean she had to give him a heads up whenever she was in the alleys for any reason. It was a public space, after all.

She turned her attention back to the potions, noting that it was about time to dissolve the linseed layers. She just hoped, idly, and in an unacknowledged part of her mind, that the location of their meeting didn't come back to bite her in the arse. She had enough problems at the moment without Leo deciding to become curious about Archie's friend Hermione as well.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

The potion had turned out perfectly. It was unappetizing as anything to look at, but that didn't stop her eyeing the sludge as though it was a brick of gold as she bottled it. After clearing her station and stowing the bottles safely in her bag, she was ready to go. It was about eight thirty, so her parents had both left for work by the time she ducked into the kitchen to grab a roll and an apple to munch on on her way to the clinic.

She didn't hear Addy's distinctive and increasingly incessant babbling from the other rooms, so she assumed Remus was watching the one-year-old at his place that morning. She felt a mild disappointment that there was no one there to share her success with, but she supposed that was for the best; she couldn't explain what the potion she'd been working on was for without explaining that she was venturing much farther from the upper alleys than her parents suspected. She was certain they assumed she spent most of her time at the Potions Guild or near to it. It was thanks to the discretion and understanding of Master Hurst that they were not disabused of this notion, and for that she could forgive the Aldermaster for his well-intentioned tongue wagging in the presence of Master Snape.

The alley was bustling as always in the morning, but Harry scarcely noticed the people pushing past and around her as she walked. She was in too good a mood to care about other people's impatience, and her thoughts were utterly occupied with pride and a kind of smug satisfaction that she hoped she could be forgiven for, considering what she had achieved the day before. No longer would she say that Wolfsbane was the most difficult potion she had ever participated in brewing. Seifer's Solution made Wolfsbane look like a NEWT potion.

If she hadn't been so caught up in self-congratulation, she might have paid more attention to her surroundings. She might have noticed the girl with curly brown hair who stopped and turned as Harry walked by the bookshop. She might even have been able to give the girl the slip before she caught up with her in the crowd—if she had seen her in time to manage any sort of avoidance whatsoever. As it was, the small hand that caught her by the elbow also caught her completely by surprise.

She turned and blinked into large, brown eyes that were just a shade too dark to be called honey. The rest of the girl's face was rather overwhelmed by the riot of brunette curls that cascaded over her shoulders where they were not held precariously back from her cheeks with a light blue headband. 

"Harry," the girl said, looking into her eyes with so much familiarity that she could only be one person.

"'Mione," Harry said, letting her face relax into a smile even as her brain whirled with confusion. "What are you doing here so early?" She made a show of looking up at the sky, if only to escape the girl's firmly assessing gaze, which slid over her in a way that was more like a Healer cataloguing a patient's condition than a girl reacquainting herself with a friend she hadn't seen in a while.

"I had some errands to run that I thought you'd probably find boring, and then I was going to spend an hour or so at Flourish and Blotts," Hermione said, shifting her weight from one foot to the other even as her head cocked curiously at Harry. "What are you doing here already?"

"Same," she confessed, affecting Archie's sheepish grin with the ease of long practice.

The brown-eyed girl looked fondly at her, and even though Harry knew she was seeing Archie-as-Harry, not her, it was still a bit unsettling. Was this how her cousin felt when he played Rigel at the gala? She felt as though she were an understudy unexpectedly asked to perform a part she'd memorized but never truly played before. "How alike we are. I've really missed you, Harry. How has your summer been? You look so different I almost didn't recognize you. Have you outgrown all of your robes in the last month?"

"Just about," she said, seizing on the explanation as to why she was wearing soft breeches and a tunic rather than true Wizarding robes. "It seemed wasteful to order new ones until I had to in the fall."

Hermione looked a little surprised. "That's surprisingly economical of you. Usually you say something like 'Even a robe worn only once is worth buying it if it's beautiful.'"

Harry fought a grimace. That sounded exactly like something Archie would say; he was every bit the fashionably wasteful heir his father had raised. "Reckon you're rubbing off on me, 'Mione. Anyway, there's no one to see me looking stunning over the holidays, so it seems a wasted effort." She sighed in a slightly melancholy way that she knew embodied her cousin's sense of drama perfectly.

"Well, since we're here, should we just run our errands together?" Hermione asked, flashing very white teeth in excitement. "I won't mind going with you if you don't mind coming with me."

Harry was abruptly torn. She had very strict instructions to do nothing that would offend, annoy, or raise the suspicions of Miss Granger, but the potion for Cora felt like a lead weight in her bag, reminding her that she'd promised Leo and Mrs. Hurst to be at the clinic that morning. "I don't mind accompanying you, 'Mione, but can we meet up in about forty minutes? There's something I have to take care of really quick and then I'm free for the rest of the day."

"Well, what is it?" the other girl asked, smiling a bit exasperatedly. "I'll just come with you."

"It's… " she honestly had no idea what to say. "It's just a personal errand, that's all. It won't take too long."

Hermione frowned at her. "What's wrong, Harry? Is it embarrassing? Because I've seen you sing along to the Weird Sisters, so I rather think we're past all that. If it's a shop you don't want me to come in, I'll just wait outside."

Harry supposed the girl thought she needed to go underwear shopping or something. She started to open her mouth, even though she had no idea what words were going to come out, but was interrupted by a soft tug on the side of her breeches. She looked down to see the boy who sometimes worked at Eeylops—Jason, the cook's son—looking up at her with thinly contained excitement and impatience.

"Hi!" he chirped, smiling a bit shyly at Hermione before turning back to Harry with an expression of fierce hope. "I'm Jason. Margo said it's okay if I say hi now. Do you have the medicine for Cora? Margo said you're gonna save her."

Harry fought the urge to close her eyes as she saw Hermione's gaze sharpen in her periphery. She leaned down so the boy didn't have to crane his neck up at her and said, very solemnly, "Can you keep a secret, Jason?" He nodded vigorously, hands twisting in his shirt with the nervous energy of a child. "Well, I have Cora's medicine right here," she told him, patting her bag gently. "Would you like to help me take it to her?"

She was tempted to just give him the bag and tell him to run it to the clinic, but as mature as she was sure the waifs of the Rogue were, she wasn't prepared to turn over a potion that had taken her the better part of a day and a month's worth of wages from Krait to brew to a kid. Even if taking it there herself did mean rousing Hermione's curiosity. She couldn't even be annoyed at the boy for coming up to her while she was with Hermione; she had told Margo specifically that it would be okay if the kids who kept eyes on her introduced themselves next time they saw her.

"You have medicine for someone?" Hermione asked, looking incredibly interested—and why wouldn't she be, training in the Healing track as she was? "Is that the errand you have to run?"

She nodded, attempting to look apologetic. "I told them I'd bring it by first thing, so I really have to get it done now. I promise I'll find you as soon as I'm back, though."

The curly-haired girl looked taken aback for a moment before her face set into an expression of stubborn insistence. "Can't I come with you? I had no idea you were delivering medicines in your free time, Harry. Do you work at an apothecary?"

"Sort of," she said, wishing she were anywhere else at that moment. Why did everything have to be complicated? She was supposed to drop off the medicine and meet Hermione at eleven. Trust Archie to make such a troublesome friend. "You don't need to come, though. It's some way from here, and—"

"Why don't you want me to come?" Hermione asked bluntly. She seemed the type to cut straight through nonsense to the heart of a matter. On second thought, she could see exactly why Archie needed a friend like that.

Harry firmed her expression. "It isn't in a good part of the alleys, Hermione. I'd feel better if you stayed here."

"All the more reason for me to come with you," Hermione said, frowning now. "You know I'm better than you in Defense class. What is this, misplaced chivalry?"

"I just don't think your parents would be happy with me taking you where I'm going," she tried.

"If you're going, I'm going," she said stoutly. "My parents don't have to know."

"She'll be okay," Jason piped up, looking between the two of them somewhat impatiently. "I'm Leo's, and so are you. Nobody is gonna bother us—'specially not with the sun out."

Hermione was looking very intrigued, now. Harry tried, but she was having trouble coming up with an argument that didn't amount to 'I just don't want you to come.' Noticing her struggle, Hermione said, "What's really wrong, Harry? Are you hiding something from me?" She didn't look hurt, exactly, more resigned, and Harry felt a familiar pang of guilt. It was the same way Draco sometimes looked at Rigel: as though she'd slammed a door in his face.

"Of course not," she said, realizing that this was only going to end one way. "Come if you want; I just think it'll be boring for you."

Looking eminently satisfied, Hermione smiled kindly down at Jason. "Lead the way, young sir."

Laughing, the boy scurried off through the crowd, only the occasional flash of his red shirt indicating that he hadn't abandoned them completely. He wasn't exactly the best of guides, but he likely knew Harry could get there without his help.

When they turned down Knockturn Alley, Hermione shrank imperceptibly closer to her side and whispered, "You weren't kidding. Who are you taking it to? They really live down here?"

She shook her head and took Hermione's hand gently, so that anyone who caught sight of them would know unmistakably that the girl was under her, and therefore Leo's, protection. "It's quite a trek, actually. This is just the only way to get there from the main alleys."

Brown eyes turned her way with unsuppressed curiosity, and Harry thought she could see what Archie liked so much about the girl. "Does the Wizarding part of London extend so far? I knew there were a couple of alleys that intersected with Diagon, like Craftsmen and Knockturn, but I didn't think there were alleys that led off from _them_ , too."

Harry smiled. "I had the same reaction when I first came here. The alleys are much bigger than most people realize. The upper alleys, as most folk around here call them, are just the commercial district, really. It extends a fair way past Craftsmen Alley, since that's where almost all the English guilds reside, but that's nothing compared to how far the alleys extend in _this_ direction."

They reached the end of Knockturn and turned down Kyprioth Court, where they spotted Jason waiting with pent-up energy for them to catch up. He led them at a fair distance through the patchwork of small back alleys that led from the cul-de-sac to the residential district beyond. When they turned down the first well-kept street, Hermione gasped. "It's a whole community," she said wonderingly, looking around at everything with rapt attention. "With market stalls and neighborhoods and—how many people live here?"

"More than live in Hogsmeade, if that gives you some clue," she said. She wasn't sure of the exact population, herself, but she could make some guesses.

"So what sort of medicine is it?" Hermione asked, linking her hands together behind her as she walked. "Am I allowed to ask, or does it fall under patient/junior-Healer confidentiality?"

"It's a potion," she said, not sure how much to tell her. She didn't know Cora, so she couldn't say whether the child would mind her illness being discussed, but if Hermione was coming with her she'd see soon enough anyway. "I'm not the girl's Healer, so I suppose I can tell you. She has Seifer's Syndrome."

Hermione gave a little "oh" of dismay. "Is it… progressed?"

"Very," Harry said, grimacing. "The potion is going to cure her, though."

"Seifer's Solution," Hermione said, nodding seriously. "That's an extremely difficult potion to make, isn't it? Did you get it from St. Mungo's? Is that who you work for?"

"Not exactly," Harry said. She sighed, then paused in walking to give the other girl a searching look. "I know you've said that you would keep my secrets, but I need to know how far that promise goes, 'Mione."

Hermione frowned at her with a searching look of her own. "What are you talking about, Harry? This isn't like you. You know I'll always keep your secrets."

"I broke a law to procure this potion," she said gently. "I know how strong your moral code is, so I have to ask: are you okay being a party to this? I can take you back the Diagon and meet up with you afterwards, if you'd rather not be involved."

"This is why you didn't want me to come," she guessed, eyes widening. "Harry, what did you do? Did you… did you steal it?"

Harry kept her gaze level. She wasn't going to admit to a specific crime without an assurance, no matter how much Archie trusted this girl. "Hermione, tell me now. Are you willing to tolerate my secrets even when they stray from the north of your moral compass? This isn't like keeping quiet about my being a girl. I broke the law, and I need to know if you trust me enough to look the other way."

Hermione's eyes flashed, and when she spoke her voice was hot and choked with indignation. "I certainly won't _look the other way_ , you idiot! If I'm not looking, I can't _help you_." As Harry's eyebrows rose with surprise, Hermione threw her arms around her in a fierce hug. "I can't promise to keep my mouth shut if I disagree with you, Harry, but I will never betray you. If you do something you think is morally questionable I want to know about it, so I can help you figure out another way, if there is one, or support you, if there isn't." She released Harry from her hug but kept her at arm's length by her shoulders to say, "Now stop being dramatic and just tell me what's going on."

Harry let her mouth relax into a smile and began walking again. Yes, she could see why Archie liked this girl. "The place we're going is a clinic called Maywell, and it services those of the lower alleys who can't afford to go to St. Mungo's for their care. While the Healers there are very dedicated to their patients, they just don't have the resources the bigger hospital does, and that can make it difficult to get medicines that are expensive or rare."

"And Seifer's Solution is both," Hermione said, grim understanding in her eyes.

She nodded. "St. Mungo's subsidizes or provides the medicines when they can, since Maywell clinic is actually a charity project funded in large part by the hospital itself, but in this case they weren't able to get the medicine Cora needs in time to save her."

"So you stole it," Hermione finished, nodding sadly. "I wish you hadn't, Harry, but I completely understand why—"

"I didn't steal it," Harry said, huffing a laugh. "Honestly, 'Mione, you think I'm that good a thief? This stuff is guarded better than goblin gold, and that's if you can find it."

"You didn't… ?" Hermione swatted Harry's arm sharply. "You beast. Making me worry like that. Honestly."

Harry laughed again, but it faded when she glanced sidelong at the girl and confessed, "I brewed it."

Her mahogany gaze shot to Harry's face in shock. "Really? But that's so impressive, Harry. I knew you were better than average at potions, but that kind of skill is amazing. Oh, I'm just so _proud_ of you for using you talents to help those less fortunate. I don't understand, though. What's wrong with brewing some medicine for a little girl? Is it because you're not a licensed Healer?"

"I'm not licensed to brew Seifer's Solution," she corrected, impressed that Hermione had come so close to guessing right. "There's a hefty fine for distributing it without leave."

Hermione waved her off with a relieved sigh. "I understand your caution, Harry, but next time please don't give me a heart attack unless you've committed a crime you can be sent to Azkaban for, all right?" Harry kept her face very relaxed and her eyes very still. She reevaluated her opinion of Hermione's guessing abilities and wished that Archie had become attached to someone slightly less clairvoyant. "Anyway, you can just get a license now, can't you? I mean, obviously don't tell them about this one, but then the next time someone needs it you can make it for them without feeling guilty, right?"

She nodded, a determined grin on her face. Hadn't she thought something similar? She would ask Master Hurst the next time she saw him what the procedures were for becoming licensed in difficult potions. As long as they didn't require a mastery, there was no reason she couldn't start expanding on her range of difficult potions while she had free time in which to do so.

"How did you get involved, anyway?" Hermione asked. "If you don't work for St. Mungo's, I mean."

"The woman who runs the clinic is married to the Aldermaster of the Potions Guild," Harry explained. "I know their son, and when the two of us stopped in to say hello to his mother the other day, we learned of Cora's predicament. So I offered to take a shot at it."

"That's really decent of you, Harry," Hermione said, eyes admiring. "I love the idea of a free clinic, too. We have things like that in the Muggle world, of course, but I'd never heard of a strictly charitable hospital for wizards. No one's even mentioned it as a career possibility at AIM."

"This is the only one that I know of," Harry said. "It's pretty small. I know there are a couple of general charity organizations, such as the Widows and Orphans Fund, that do offer subsidized medical treatment as part of their services, but that's done through St. Mungo's itself, not a separate facility."

"This makes so much more sense, though," Hermione said, walking slightly faster as she got more excited about what she was saying. "I doubt St. Mungo's takes a loss on services through a fund like that, which means the healthcare itself isn't any cheaper, it just gets paid for through the donations that people make to the fund, right? I'll bet that's a huge drain on the charity; if they could refer their recipients to a facility that was itself subsidized or discounted they'd be able to increase the effectiveness of their programs overall by diverting the funds that would have gone to paying premium prices for Healing at St. Mungo's to other, equally worthy endeavors."

"Maybe you should just re-design the whole Wizarding world," Harry said. It was hard to disagree with anything the other girl was saying.

"Maybe I will," Hermione said, amused. "You have to admit the inefficiency is staggering at times. I mean, having magic is one thing, but there's no excuse for wasting resources and not doing everything possible to economize and capitalize on the magic in the first place. "

"I think it has to do with wizards' natural inclination to resist change and preserve the mystery that magic represents," Harry said, having been struck by similar observations in the past. "I think some people are afraid of treating magic as anything less than a sacred blessing from the gods. It must be honored and preserved, but not manipulated or taken advantage of beyond a certain acceptable extent. This applies to magical society as well. Change in the form of progress must come so slowly that it's almost unnoticeable. To transform the world too quickly is to admit that something about it is wrong." At Hermione's blank look, Harry grimaced. "I know how it sounds, but you have to remember that a lot of wizards believe they were chosen to wield magic because of a quality that is innate in them, not because of a happy accident of genetics. They think there's something perfect about magic, something indelibly pure. To people who think that way, the idea of making magic and the world of magic _efficient_ is unattractive; deciding which parts of their glorious tradition are useful and which are superfluous feels like playing god. The only time they accept sudden change is when it's a reversal of progress—suddenly barring Muggleborns from attending Hogwarts, for instance. If it's couched in a way that feels like a decisive act of _restoration_ to the purity of the past, people can get behind it. Otherwise… every well-reasoned argument just sounds to them like an upstart indoctrinate telling a senior priest how to worship his god properly."

"But that's so insane," Hermione moaned, tugging on her own hair in frustration. "You can't treat real life like a religion. There are actual consequences in the physical world around them for their stubborn ignorance. Consequences for people like _me_. Like _us_."

"In their minds, they don't have a duty to protect us," Harry said quietly. "They only have a duty to protect magic itself and preserve the wise practices passed down by the great magic users of old. Individual lives don't mean anything in the scope of the ten-thousand-year tradition they imagine themselves to be heir to."

"Even the oldest families in the Book of Gold don't go back more than a thousand years," Hermione grumbled. "Don't they realize that even the purest of families, the purest _magic_ , has to start somewhere?"

"Oh, they do," Harry said, smiling wryly. "In a perfect world the Muggleborns would have their own community, and marry one another until their children were sufficiently halfblooded, at which point they would marry other halfbloods until eventually their line became pure by definition, after which they would live in relative obscurity, a faceless, nameless family of pureblooded witches and wizards who listened to whatever the oldest and purest of families told them. Very few purebloods are fanatic enough to want to shut Muggleborns out of society completely. The wiser ones even recognize that they need fresh blood to survive in any genetically competitive sense. They'd still like to see outsiders integrated slowly, however, preferably with as little impact on the society at large as possible. What they fear above all is a Muggleborn or halfblood coming into their society for seven years and then, whether by skill, hard work, or accident, ascending to power rapidly and enacting widespread change in the culture at a pace that their traditions can't combat effectively."

"So they shunt us off to schools outside of the country where we can make no connections, so that when we enter the workplace—at those places not discouraged from hiring anyone schooled abroad—we are at a permanent disadvantage compared to our pureblooded coworkers," Hermione said, something like pained fury on her face. "It's rather brilliant, I have to admit. A few years ago I would have said no one would spend so much time and energy actively fighting to keep someone else down when they could be spending it on building themselves up, but… well, the Wizarding world has been nothing if not full of surprises, I suppose."

"Not all of them bad," Harry said, nudging the girl softly. She hadn't meant to get to involved in a conversation about politics while they walked. They were nearing Pendragon Alley, anyway, and there was no need to take a bad mood into the clinic with them.

Hermione smiled with the right side of her mouth. "Not all bad," she agreed. After a deep breath, she added, "Nothing can stay bad forever, anyway. Look at what we're doing now. You're going to take a potion to a little girl and make her healthy again. I firmly believe there's a cure for everything, if you look hard enough. We'll find the cure for the Wizarding world, Harry. I know we will."

She found a light blinking faintly in her chest that was something like hope and marveled at Hermione's ability to make an arguably impossible task sound like something the two of them just hadn't got around to yet.

Jason had reached the entrance to Maywell long before them, but he waited patiently for them to arrive before bursting through the doors with a whoop.

"Harry's here! Harry's here, Miss Eleni!" he called into the lobby.

Janice came around the front desk even as Mrs. Hurst poked her head out of a patient room and gestured her over with shaky expectation in her eyes. "In here, Harry. Did it work? Leo said you were entirely confident when he left."

Harry smiled widely as she and Hermione crossed the foyer. The good feeling she'd woken up with was back. "It turned out perfectly," she told the Healer. She carefully extracted the bottles from her bag and handed them over to the witch, who grasped the containers as though they were spun sugar rather than thick, sturdy glass.

"Thank you," Mrs. Hurst said softly, settling a very grateful gaze on her face before turning and moving back into the room. "Come see Cora—she wants to meet you. Your friend, too."

They followed her through the door into a space that looked smaller than it was, probably because of all the people crowding around the little bed that stood in the center. Leo was there, lounging in a corner so as to be out of the way of Healer Carol, who was monitoring the little girl's vitals. The blonde-haired child in the bed didn't appear to be paying the Healer any attention, though. She was blinking wide green eyes at Harry and Hermione, somehow managing to convey a sense of boundless energy without moving a single muscle. She had to wonder with a pang how long the poor child had been confined to a bed.

"You're Harry," the girl said. She was propped up on a number of pillows, and her gaze flitted around the room fast enough to compensate for her motionless body. "I'm Cora. Margo said you were nice."

"She said you were nice, too," Harry told the girl.

"Who're you?" Cora asked, her eyes landing on Hermione's wildly curly hair with something like fascination.

"This is my friend, Hermione," Harry said. "She wanted to come and make sure you got better. Hermione, this is Cora."

"It's lovely to meet you," Hermione said, the kindness in her eyes far outshining any pity she may have felt for the child.

"Harry and Hermione brought you a present, dear heart," Mrs. Hurst said. She had uncorked one of the bottles and scooped a dram of the congealed potion into a little cup. "It's going to make you better."

"It looks like garbage sludge," Cora said matter-of-factly.

"Just pretend it's pudding," Jason said encouragingly. "That's what I do when I have to eat mashed peas."

"You drop your peas on the floor and everyone knows it," Cora said absently, still inspecting the cup of greenish-grey medicine suspiciously. "I think it's troll boogies."

"I'll turn _you_ into a boogie if you don't eat it," Mrs. Hurst threatened.

Gulping, Cora gingerly tilted her head back and allowed the Healer to squeeze the contents of the cup into her mouth without further delay. She shuddered and grimaced but nonetheless swallowed the full dose.

"How long until it takes effect?" Leo asked from his corner. She didn't miss the way he eyed Hermione with undisguised curiosity and began brainstorming ways of putting that meeting off as long as possible.

"She'll have to take one dose an hour for the next twelve hours," Mrs. Hurst said briskly. "We'll know it's working when she can wiggle her fingers and toes; it'll pull the magic out of the extremities first."

"So I'll be able to juggle again, soon," Cora said, eyes lighting up. "I'm almost up to five knives at once!"

Hermione looked vaguely alarmed, but kept her thoughts to herself at Harry's reassuring look. Mrs. Hurst was not so circumspect. "No knife juggling for at least two weeks," she said sternly. "When your muscles are completely recovered you may start with balls and pins only." Cora groaned as much as she was able without moving, but Mrs. Hurst would not be moved. "You'll have to relearn some of your dexterity before you're back in top form."

Cora sighed, but appeared altogether satisfied that she would at least be back to her old self eventually. Seeing that all was well, Harry said a quiet goodbye to Cora and Jason and took Hermione back out to the lobby. She was hoping to declare their errand complete and get the Muggleborn girl back to Diagon without delay, but when Mrs. Hurst followed them out, Hermione latched onto the older woman immediately, rattling off questions and soaking up their answers like a somewhat worshipful sponge.

"But why haven't I heard anything about places like this before?" Hermione bemoaned. "Even our professors at AIM never mentioned the possibility."

"AIM?" Mrs. Hurst blinked, looking at the girl more carefully. "Are you in the Healer track then?"

"That's right," Hermione said, smiling brightly. "I'm in the same class as Harry."

Mrs. Hurst looked a little confused, though she attempted to hide it as she delved into a discussion on the difficulties facing charitable projects in the Wizarding world. Harry recalled with a mental cringe that Mrs. Hurst had never believed her story about attending AIM during the school year. She must be very perplexed as to why a girl was now claiming to be her schoolmate. She wasn't worried about the Healer prying into the facts of their relationship; Mrs. Hurst was discreet, and there was nothing incriminating for her to find in any case. She did wonder if it would make her less suspicious of Harry's backstory or more suspicious of Hermione's, though.

It seemed as if their discussion was winding down, which was good news for Harry. She really wanted to get Hermione back to the upper alleys before Leo got around to meeting her. She was just about to suggest they get going when the brown-eyed girl uttered a question that nearly made her groan aloud in frustration.

"Do you need any part-time volunteers?"

"Volunteers?" Mrs. Hurst repeated, looking intrigued by the idea. "We've never had an intern before." A shadow crossed her face a moment later. "It's very kind of you to offer, my dear, but no. It's not safe for you to traverse the alleys if you aren't familiar with them."

"I could Floo in," Hermione insisted, looking quite eager. "You have a Floo, don't you? My parents' house is connected. They'll be thrilled at the idea; they work in a branch of the Muggle healthcare system, and they're very keen on the virtues of public service."

"Well, I don't know," Mrs. Hurst said, looking torn. Harry could see she liked the idea of having a young would-be Healer to train. It was probably only the reluctance to expose the girl to the lower alley way of life that kept her from agreeing immediately.

"I'll work very hard, Ma'am," Hermione assured her. "I'm the top of my class—well, sometimes Harry is, but I'm sure I can be of use in complementary ways. Harry is excellent with blunt trauma and with potions, of course, but I'm told I have a very delicate touch with soft tissues."

Mrs. Hurst laughed softly. "You certainly sound well-qualified. I suppose… if you're sure you want to."

Harry was hard pressed to hide her horror as the two finalized the arrangement. They had just met and suddenly there was an air of deep camaraderie between them. How had events spiraled so quickly out of her control? There was no way she could keep Leo and Hermione from meeting if she was spending an unknown amount of time at Maywell. How long until they started comparing notes on her?

She could feel something like despair creeping up on her even as she kept a pleased expression pasted on her face for the sake of her 'friend.' Somehow when she'd analyzed the idea of bringing Hermione along in order to make the errand seem less suspicious she had been entirely focused on the possibility that Leo would become curious about a friend of Harry's from school. Somehow it never occurred to her that _Hermione_ might be curious about something in _Leo's_ world.

The only saving grace was that Leo stayed in the patient room keeping Cora company until Harry managed to drag Hermione away from the clinic. At the least, that interaction had been postponed.

Hermione chatted the whole way back to Diagon, speculating about the types of cases she'd be likely to see and how much broader a range of experience it would be compared to what they were exposed to at AIM. Harry hummed agreeably in all the right places, but Hermione seemed to know that her placidly interested face hid a deep discomfort.

"Have I upset you, Harry?" Hermione asked abruptly, interrupting her own train of thought as she glanced over and caught a glimpse of something in Harry's eyes that derailed it.

"No, not at all," she said, putting a greater effort into projecting a relaxed sort of cheer. "I had no idea you'd be so interested in the clinic, or I would have mentioned it before."

She frowned. "I'm not stupid, Harry. It's kind of obvious you were reluctant to share that with me. Is it… is it because they think you're a boy here, too?"

"Some people do," Harry admitted. "And almost no one knows my last name is Potter. I have a kind of… anonymity here, I suppose, that I value. Maybe I was afraid that if I brought someone from my normal life down here I would lose… something. I'm not explaining it well. I wasn't trying to hurt your feelings."

"I know," Hermione said. "I understand that you probably need somewhere you can be yourself over the summer, away from your family, I mean. I want you to know that I wasn't trying to force my way into this part of your life, even though it might seem that way. I mean, I want to be part of your life, obviously, but if it makes you uncomfortable I'll keep to the clinic and you'll hardly ever see me."

"You are a part of my life," she said, casting about for a sentiment she thought Archie would exhibit. "The best part."

Hermione looked slightly uncomfortable, but Harry couldn't tell if it was because she could detect the note of insincerity behind the words or of there was some other reason. She really didn't known enough about Archie's relationship with Hermione to make this work properly.

"Well," the other girl said after a long moment of silence. "This was certainly more than I expected from our outing today. Wait until mother hears that I went out for ice cream and came home with an _internship_."

"I'm sure she expects nothing less of you," Harry said, attempting the teasing tone that she might use with her own friends. "You have already finished the summer assignments, after all. Even your no doubt ambitious reading list won't be able to fill your whole summer. In fact," she mused, tapping her chin thoughtfully, "I wouldn't be surprised if your parents were rather relieved."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Hermione demanded on an amused huff.

"Just that a Hermione Granger with too much time on her hands can't be good for the household equilibrium," Harry said innocently. "You do enjoy projects, don't you, 'Mione?"

"Are you insinuating that I meddle in other people's lives in order to fill a boredom-induced-void that otherwise aches in the absence of constructive work to satisfy my industrious nature?" Hermione squinted at her in a way that was as intimidating as a baby squirrel.

"I thought I'd said it pretty bluntly, actually," Harry said, inspecting her fingernails.

They exchanged affected looks of suspicion and nonchalance respectively before breaking into matching grins.

"Let's get ice cream, Harry," Hermione said, linking her arm with Harry's happily. Harry relaxed into her grip, feeling content that she'd at least been able to smooth things back into a semblance of companionship. She thought that with a couple more meetings like this, she'd have a good enough handle on the Muggleborn girl's personality to get on well with her. Hermione certainly wasn't overbearing or rude, which is more than she could say about many of her other acquaintances. On the other hand, a large part of her hoped she never got the chance. As impractical as the sentiment was in the long term, she wished she could just leave the other girl to Archie.

Shaking her head internally, she berated herself. Being friends with a smart, well-meaning girl was far from the worst thing she would do in the course of their ruse. Who was she to complain? She was lucky to get the chance to solidify her cover at AIM in such an unassuming way. Hermione would be a fountain of information and small details—the kind that really sold a lie, the kind that she would need if she were ever asked in detail about her experiences in America. With that in mind, she shook off the uneasy feeling that lingered at the idea of Hermione traipsing around the lower alleys unattended. She had to take advantage of this opportunity while she could.

Pulling herself out of her own thoughts, she bent her mind more readily to the girl beside her. Archie was counting on her to keep his relationship with Hermione strong. She'd done a poor job of it so far, having been caught off-balance from their first, unexpected encounter. She could do better. She would have to, for both of their sakes.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

Between pursuing her independent research and training with Leo, the long summer days passed swiftly. Before she had even grasped how quickly the time was moving it had already slipped through her fingertips. The first day of the lower alley tournament arrived, if not unexpectedly, at least impetuously soon.

She woke early, taking care to eat a small but dense breakfast of grains and eggs. She left before her parents even woke, scratching a note on a spare bit of parchment in her lab for her mother to find in case she thought to look for her. Aside from her wand and knife, she carried nothing in her pockets. Her clothes were… sturdy, for lack of a better description. The plain red tunic was sleeveless and belted close to her waist to minimize any loose material that might snag at an inopportune moment. Her breeches were tucked snugly inside her trusty boots, and she thought, as she caught her reflection in the kitchen window, that even if she didn't look intimidating, she had an air of general competence about her. The determined look in her eyes didn't hurt. She was ready to finally get a real feel for her abilities.

Before she ducked into the Floo, she tucked her hair under a soft brown cap and added a pair of thick dueling goggles to the top of her head. They were much less likely to be broken in a scuffle than her usual glasses, and the slight tint they afforded her eyes had the added use of disguising their color to the casual observer. She wouldn't call herself paranoid, but knowing that Bill Weasley, Regulus Black, and Hermione Granger were all wont to traverse the lower alleys made her reluctant to advertise her presence in the competition overtly.

If the goggles themselves had a few spells embedded for clear sight and long-distance magnification, well, it was anything goes in a freedueling tournament, wasn't it?

By the time she'd reached Kyprioth Court, she could feel the excitement mounting in the air of the lower alleys. Even if she hadn't known about the tournament, she felt it would be obvious that something was going on. There were many more people about than usual for the early hour, and the people she saw wore smiles and anticipatory grins more often than not.

The closer she got to Pendragon Alley, the more overt the signs became, until she was walking through a wide swath of tents and stands selling food, drink, flags, and souvenirs. Some stalls had simple games set up with prizes for the skilled and lucky. From others came music in every form imaginable, all lively and energetic. She shook her head a bit, wondering if they thought the Ministry was really so unobservant. She supposed anyone not here for the tournament wouldn't have reason to come down this way, but still… the atmosphere was positively alive with exhilarated expectation.

The large intersection over which King Arthur's statue presided was conspicuously empty compared to the myriad booths that surrounded it. At least, she thought it was. It was difficult to look at the intersection for very long, and she gave up after a few moments when her head began complaining at the effort. She had to hand it to Regulus—those were some powerful wards.

She wove her way toward where a pair of huge flags—one blue one red—were planted in the dirt at slanting angles, forming an archway through which a slow trickle of people was moving. There were a couple of youths wearing the Rogue's sigil standing next to the entryway and collecting admission fees in exchange for golden bracelets. She assumed they would allow one to pass in and out of the wards for the duration of the tournament—or perhaps they would charge admission each day and vary the colors of the bracelets. She wouldn't have to worry about it—as a competitor she had been given a patch to sew to her clothes that designated her with the number fifteen. When the guards caught sight of it, they waved her through.

A zinging sensation, and then she was hard-pressed not to gape at the sight before her. If she didn't know how internal expansion wards worked, she would be tempted to believe she'd just been transported to another place entirely. The enormous square before her was dominated by a rectangular platform raised about five feet off the ground. She estimated it to be fifty meters long and perhaps thirty wide. It was immense, at least compared to the little dirt courtyard in the Phoenix she'd been practicing in all summer. She had to wonder what they were supposed to do with all that space. Run away, perhaps?

On either side of the dueling platform rose stands that towered over the stage like looming goliaths. Were they really expecting so many spectators? She shied away from the implications of so many rows of bleachers. She had played Quidditch in front of this many people at school. It was no different, she told herself, ignoring the little voice that was pointing out that there she had been one of fourteen people on the Quidditch pitch, not one of two.

Behind the stands on both sides were more tents, belonging to those lucky vendors who'd been allowed or could afford a spot inside the wards. Concessions abounded between more stands with flags and souvenirs. She wondered why all the flags were red or blue—those weren't exactly the colors of the Court of the Rogue. As her eyes caught sight of a grand board set up on the far end of the stage, however, she realized it was by design; the bracket for the tournament was blown up in huge lettering, and next to each name or blank space was either a red dot or a blue dot. Walking closer, she scanned the list for her name and spotted it next to a crimson circle. She grinned, fingering her tunic. That was certainly lucky. Looking around at all the people carrying red or blue flags, she realized it was a clever way to give people a competitor to cheer for in the event that they didn't know either one personally.

Behind the bracket board, next to a green tent with a large medical cross on the top, there was an immense pavilion with the words 'Duelers' Tent' on a sign across the front. She wasn't the first one there, but it was far from full. Sliding her goggles over her eyes, she meandered her way inside and took a look around.

Leo wasn't hard to spot. He was surrounded by people asking questions and complaining about various things, demanding he attend to this problem or that. Beside him, his cousin Rispah looked quite irritated at the clamoring.

"Leave off, will you? I told you, take it all up with Aled Flint!" the rouged woman shouted. "Leave Leo be, you vultures, he hasn't got time for it today."

"I must prepare for the competition myself," Leo said, raising his voice just enough to be heard without sounding strident. "I'm certain that the tournament organizers can handle any issue that arises. You will know them by the sigils on their shirts."

Gradually, the group disgruntledly dispersed and Leo was left at a small round table with Rispah and Marek, who was also competing. She made her way over and took a seat, grinning as it took them a moment to recognize her.

"That you, Harry?" Marek said, looking amused. "Trying to seem mysterious?"

"That's right," Harry told him. "Today it's 'Harry the Hidden.'"

"That's awful. How about Harry the Hollerer? It sounds like you have a war cry." Marek waggled his eyebrows unhelpfully.

"How about you, then?" Harry asked. "Are you Marek the Magnificent?"

"I want to be 'Marek the Mighty.'" He laughed.

"What about Leo?" Rispah asked, eyes amused. Leo rolled his eyes, prompting the woman to suggest, "Lionel the Listless."

"Leo the Loser!" Marek cackled. "Today you bow to Marek the Mighty!"

"More like Marek the Misguided," Leo smirked. "I'll be… "

"Leo the Lovesick," Rispah cut in, a wicked smile curling her lips.

"Oh, that's a good one," Marek said seriously. "I bet the favors will pour in for such a romantic-type hero. I should have thought of that."

"Marek the Mopey?" Harry wondered.

"Mooning Marek," Rispah said, nodding with insincere approval.

Marek made a face. "Never mind, then. That just sounds wrong."

Rispah stood with a feminine flick of her fingers. "I've just decided which bet I want to place," she said, glancing out of the large pavilion to where Harry supposed someone was taking wagers. "Marek Swiftknife gets pantsed before the tournament is out. I'll personally reward anyone who manages it with my favor, in fact."

"Oi! You can't do that." Marek scrambled after the woman, leaving Leo and Harry to laugh at the ignominy of their friends.

"Feeling ready?" Leo asked. He eyed her attire with approval, hazel gaze easily picking out the imprint of the knife at her waist and the wand along her thigh.

"If I'm not prepared by now, I've no business being here," Harry said, attempting to sound optimistic. Somehow it came out slightly worried, instead.

"You'll do great," Leo said firmly. "You're better than you think."

"Two matches for each competitor today, right?" Harry clarified.

Leo nodded. "For the ones who defeat their first opponents, at least. Then two tomorrow, and one each the following two days—those matches will be harder, so it's best not to tire out the final two competitors by making them finish it the third day."

"That, and you can bring in more gold if there's a grand finale on the fourth day," Harry said.

"Also we can make a _lot_ more gold," Leo agreed shamelessly. "Did you eat?" he asked after a moment.

She nodded. "Couldn't sleep, so I just decided to get going and head over."

"Let's get you a pint, then," Leo said, making to stand. "It'll calm your nerves."

"It's seven in the morning," Harry said, rolling her eyes. "I'm not drinking before the matches."

"Oh, match _es_ , is it? You're pretty confident after all," Leo said archly. "I suppose you think you can lull me into going easy on you if you play the nervous rookie card."

"As if we'll even get to fight," Harry scoffed. She did stand, though. "I'll have a glass of milk, I suppose—if you're buying."

"Oh yes, I'm sure that will make a big difference," Leo said drolly.

"Milk is very soothing, actually." Harry sniffed. "We give it to my little sister all the time to help her sleep."

"Are you planning to snore your competitor to defeat?" Leo asked, amused.

"I might drool on him," she said thoughtfully. "I don't want to reveal too much of my strategy beforehand, though."

"Mother forbid," Leo said.

"Speaking of mothers, where's yours?" Harry asked. "Is she working the Healers' tent?"

"That's right," Leo said, nodding. "She's left the clinic in very capable hands today—you're familiar with them, I think."

"Hermione?" she guessed, trying not to wince. She'd seen the girl a couple of times around the clinic, though she hadn't exactly gone out of her way to visit. She seemed to be enjoying her volunteer work immensely. At least she was working at the clinic and not at the tournament today. She could just imagine how that particular conversation would go.

"Mhmm," Leo hummed. "Interesting girl, that Hermione. You've got a good friend in her; she adores you, judging by the frequency with which she references you in casual conversation."

"I know," she said. After deciding that sounded arrogant, she added, "I mean, we are very good friends."

"You don't visit her often," Leo said, an idle tone to his voice that didn't fool her for a moment.

"I'll see her all day, every day at school," she said, shrugging a bit. "We're both quite busy this summer, in any case."

"She doesn't seem to know what you're so busy with, though," Leo pointed out.

Harry had to give him that. The other girl knew neither that she was training for the freedueling tournament nor that she was working on experimental potions research in correspondence with Professor Snape. "We'll catch up at school," she said again. Leo let it go, knowing without her having to say or do anything obvious that she didn't really want to talk about it anymore.

Outside one of the concession stands, a girl with vibrant curls tied up on top of her head caught up to them with a large smile. She curtseyed, and it was surprisingly graceful despite the basket she carried. "Good morning, Highness. Morning, Harry."

"Margo," Leo said, nodding his head gravely. "I see you are up with the sun as usual. Very industrious. How are your flowers today?"

"Unsurpassable," Margo said, stifling a giggle in an effort to look solemn. "I shall have this basket emptied by lunch."

"See that you do," Leo intoned. After a moment in which he and the little girl gazed sternly at one another, they both relaxed into grins. "Are you excited for the show? Will you cheer for me?"

"Of course!" Margo said, bouncing a little on her heels. "And for you, Harry," she added, smiling impishly. "Would you like another flower for good luck?"

Harry smiled. "Why not? Which one is lucky?"

Leo leant forward and picked out a short-stemmed red flower while dropping a coin in Margo's pocket. "This one," he said, presenting it to her with a flourish. She immediately recognized it as a common ingredient in Headache Relief Potions.

"That's a chrysanthemum," Margo said, giggling as Harry took it carefully. "Some people think it's unlucky, but actually it's a really strong kind of flower. Know why?"

She shook her head, shooting Leo an amused look. Trust him to pick the only unlucky flower in the bunch. "Why?"

"The chrysanthemum blooms in the fall," Margo told her earnestly. "Lots of spring and summer flowers are really delicate—if a strong wind comes, they blow right off the branch! The chrysanthemum won't, though, and that's why it can grow in a season when most flowers just die."

"I didn't know that," Harry said, folding the stem flat against the back of the flower and tucking the many-petaled bloom into the fold of her hat. A quick murmured Sticking Charm saw that it wouldn't fall out while she fought.

The little girl tilted her head, causing her curls to spill over her cheek as she added, thoughtfully, "That's also why it's a symbol of love. 'Cause it hangs on even when other flowers let go."

Harry kept her smile firmly in place and very pointedly did not look in Leo's direction. At all. "You sure know a lot about flowers," she remarked calmly.

"Of course," Margo said primly. "It's my _job_ to know. Good luck in the tourney, Highness, Harry." She skipped off toward a group of people deliberating over a selection of turkey legs.

"Precocious, isn't she?" Leo said, drawing her unwilling attention. She didn't know why she was so embarrassed—it was just a flower, and he'd probably picked it at random. Or to make fun of her. That would be just like him.

"Very," Harry agreed lightly. They'd reached the front of the line, so Leo ordered an ale—"it's watered down, stop looking at me like that, Harry,"—and Harry asked for milk. She was told politely that they didn't sell milk, much to Leo's amusement, so she settled for a cup of water.

They returned to the Duelers' Tent, which was slowly beginning to fill with people. It wasn't cramped, exactly, but with sixty-four competitors there weren't a lot of empty seats, either. She caught sight of a burly-armed man wearing the number sixteen and had to smile at his white tunic and blue bandana. He really did look a little like a pirate.

The crowd outside steadily grew louder. Leo nudged her into limbering up as the opening ceremony began. Rispah had apparently been in charge of the entertainment, and while Harry couldn't see exactly what was going on up on stage, the spectators certainly seemed to be… entertained.

Leo had the first match, and he stepped out onto the platform to riotous applause. He took it amiably, if not entirely humbly. Harry moved to stand under the bracket board with the other competitors to watch the tournament begin. If anyone was hoping to see a spectacular match right off, however, they were to be disappointed. Leo won almost embarrassingly quickly. Before he'd even broken a sweat he was descending the steps and handing the armband that let him through the platform's wards off to one of the next competitors.

He sauntered over to her with a grin that was entirely entreating. "So?" he said, crossing his arms as he came to a stop in front of her.

She pretended to think. "Your opponent had good footwork."

His face slid into a playful scowl. "Not as good as mine."

"Hmm? I didn't notice," she shrugged.

"You're the worst, Harry," Leo sighed.

She let herself smile. "Great match, Leo. Do try not to humiliate your next opponent too much."

"Don't you want me to do my best?" Leo asked, affecting a wounded expression.

"Don't you want to make money from this thing?" she shot back. "No one wants to watch a shut-out."

He smirked. "You're right. It's almost unfair that I'm even competing."

She shoved him in the direction of a water cooler. "Go cool down, Highness."

"You aren't allowed to call me that," Leo complained over his shoulder.

She turned her attention back to the arena without bothering to respond. The next match was already underway, which she supposed made sense, as they had a whopping forty-eight matches to get through before it ended today; all the winners of the first thirty-two bouts would have to compete again before the day was out. While most of the first matches were short-lived, this would still be easily the longest day of the tournament. Once the numbers had been whittled down, she was sure each match would begin with a great deal more pomp and ceremony.

Her turn came before she had time to make herself too nervous. She accepted the somewhat sweaty armband from competitor number thirteen and put it on. As she stepped through the wards, the noise of the crowd dampened considerably. That was rather considerate, she thought, wondering if it was something the organizers had requested or if Regulus simply had a lot of experience erecting arena-style wards.

She pulled her mind back to the moment as her opponent took a ready stance. She palmed her knife in a reverse hammer grip and settled her wand comfortably in her right hand. They waited for the sound that would signify the start of their match, watching one another carefully. Fearless Frank seemed to be living up to his moniker, at least. He looked not the least bit afraid, and she wasn't sure if that should make her nervous or not. Then he grinned at her, and it wasn't anything like a pirate's grin. It was friendly and open, the grin of a man who was looking forward to having fun. That was when she realized his lack of nerves stemmed from a disinclination to take the match too seriously, not from complete confidence in himself.

The gong went off and Harry moved diagonally at once, both closing the distance between them and attempting to flank him. He turned with her and shot off a Tripping Jinx that she simply sidestepped while firing a Tarantallegra back at him. He conjured a simple shield instead of dodging, so she darted even closer while he was unable to attack. Realizing his mistake, he dropped the shield and retreated, only to raise it hurriedly once more as she shot off two stunners in quick succession.

The shield rippled after the first stunner struck it but reformed before the second could slip through. She had been advancing all the while, and because he couldn't or wouldn't move while his shield was up, she was now close enough to bombard his defenses physically. Her knife came stabbing down at the shield on the left side while her foot lashed out in a roundhouse kick to strike on the right. The shield rippled from both points and, where the ripples met, destabilized completely.

Her wand was in motion even before his shield fell to her bastardized physical improvisation of a Ward Disruptor. Before he could blink the surprised look from his face she had him utterly trapped in an Incarcerous. She summoned his wand for good measure and straightened from her dueling crouch.

"Winner: Harry!" came the call over the roar of the crowd. She grinned, unable to believe it had been so easy. She released her opponent and handed him back his wand once he'd straightened.

"Good match," she offered as they walked toward the stairs.

"It were indeed," the big man said, nodding jovially. "Not sure how you knew to ripple my shield like that, but it were right clever, lad."

"Thanks," she said, grateful for his good sportsmanship.

They handed off their armbands to the next set of competitors and shook hands before going their separate ways. On her way back into the Duelers' Tent she saw a couple of other men catch up with 'Fearless Frank' and rib him good-naturedly about his loss. He didn't seem much bothered by losing to someone as young and small as she, merely smiling cheerfully and shrugging in a what-can-you-do- sort of way.

Leo pressed a cup of water into her hand when he found her. "Not bad," he said. "Not bad at all. What did you think of your first real duel?"

"It was surprisingly easy," she said, frowning a little. "He didn't seem to have any hand-to-hand experience, and his casting was pretty slow." Very slow, actually, compared to some of her friends from school. Compared to Remus, well… it wasn't even a contest.

"I told you," Leo said, shaking his head. "You're better than you think. He was just an amateur, anyway. Your next opponent will be more interesting."

"Fourteen, right?" she said, glancing at a table not far away. A pair of goblins sat with tankards in front of them, both clad chin to toe in golden armor and carrying swords. It was difficult to tell with goblins, but she thought one was male and the other female. She'd watched the female's match while waiting for her own and knew that her opponent favored a defensive style and was much quicker than she ought to be in such heavy-looking armor. Her first match had lasted all of five minutes before she'd landed a nasty gash on her competitor's wand arm and he'd forfeited ruefully.

"Greystrike and Goldflame. They're brother and sister," Leo said, eyeing the pair subtly as well. "Twins, maybe. Those swords they carry aren't just for slicing people open—they can deflect spells with them."

She nodded. She'd seen the female goblin reflect a stunner right back at her opponent and send him scrambling to dodge. It wouldn't be a simple matter of bombarding the wandless goblin with magic. She'd have to be smart about how she fought.

"Time for that later, though," Leo said, clapping his hands together decisively. "Let's grab a bite. They're only half through the first matches, so we've got time before I need to be back here."

They left the pavilion and made their way through throngs of cheerful people. Every now and then someone would catch sight of their numbered patches or recognize Leo and wish them good luck in the next round. They found a stall outside the wards selling sandwiches and ate them as they walked about the alley, Harry marveling at the sheer energy of the crowd around them and Leo looking entirely satisfied at the amount of business even the outer booths seemed to be doing.

When they returned to the pavilion, they found Merek sitting alone at their table.

"I can't believe you didn't watch my match!" he exclaimed when he caught sight of them. "You should be sizing me up! Don't take me lightly this time, Leo, I—is that for me?" He snatched the sandwich from Leo's outstretched hand with a gleeful grin. "This is why we're still friends despite your grossly arrogant disregard for the threat I represent, Highness."

Leo sighed. "I've already seen you fight a thousand times, Marek, against better opponents than that fellow I'm sure you pummeled into the dirt, too. I wasn't going to learn anything new about your style watching that match."

Marek appeared mollified. "That's why I didn't watch your first match, either."

Harry and Leo exchanged an amused look that Marek missed, being very involved in devouring the chicken sandwich in his hands. Marek certainly had watched Leo's first bout, and the both of them knew it.

After a lengthy intermission following the match between numbers 63 and 64, Leo was called for the beginning of the second round. Harry and Marek found a good enough vantage point and settled in to watch. She sincerely hoped it would last longer than the first round had.

It did.

Leo must have been a dancer in a previous life—that's all she could think. He wove around his opponent as though he'd known every move she would make ahead of time and had choreographed a routine to take full advantage of her every aborted gesture. His reaction time was so swift one could almost imagine him living three seconds in the future at all times. He carried two knives instead of the usual single knife and wand, almost as though his magic was something superfluous to his real skills. The way his movements resembled an art form, she could almost believe it was true.

There was something off about the knife in his right hand, though. It wasn't a flat blade, but a long triangular prism made of some kind of crystal and likely reinforced with runes. She'd seen him fight with it once before—when she witnessed Marek challenging him for the Kingship last year—but she still didn't know what was special about it. The shape was such that he constantly adjusted his grip on it, spinning the three edges into different positions with clever dexterity as he met his opponent's blade again and again. The man he fought had a wand but didn't seem to rely on it much. Was that why Leo wasn't using his? Did he know his opponent preferred weapons to wands? It would be just like Leo to play on another's terms simply because he could.

He slipped around the scant few spells his competitor shot off and, while his quick movements should have looked frantic, instead he made them look easy—cool, even, if she was being honest. After the bout had gone on long enough to get the energy in the stadium fevered once more, a jet of red light came from nowhere and struck the man in his chest. His legs collapsed beneath him and Leo relaxed into a casual pose as the magnified voice rang out. "Winner: King Leo!"

"The knife is hollow," Marek said, chuckling at her flummoxed expression.

She tried to get a good look at what he was talking about, but Leo had already stowed his blades. "He can keep his wand inside of it?" she clarified.

Marek nodded. "He only uses that knife when he's fighting seriously, and he only conceals his wand inside it when he's fighting _very_ seriously. I suppose he can't take any chances on losing in this tournament. The crystal it's made from is stronger than dragon scale, I'd wager. It magnifies the magic that passes through it, as well; hideously expensive, but it's saved Leo's life more times than he'd probably admit."

She considered that for a moment and decided she was impressed. It was exceedingly clever to encase the wand so that it was not only defended against physical attacks (always a weakness for even those wands made of the strongest wood) while simultaneously making it into an offensive physical weapon in its own right. Add in the amplification factor, and it was a tool to be reckoned with—for those wizards who could use a knife in combat, at least.

Leo strode jovially over to fish for his usual allotment of compliments. Harry wasn't even stingy this time—it really had been a good bout. There were two matches in between Leo's and Harry's, and she found that was barely enough time to warm up her body once more. She took her armband key distractedly, mind racing with inane reminders that wouldn't help her at all. If her body didn't know what to do by now, no amount of telling it what to do with her brain was going to make up for it.

The sun was still high overhead when she and the female goblin took the stage. The light glared on the polished gold of her opponent's armor, making her glad she wore goggles that filtered the light efficiently. The goblin gave her a grin that was almost cruelly anticipatory before donning her helmet and drawing her weapon. The sword she carried wasn't long—the goblin's arms would be too short to support a true broadsword—but it was wider than she'd expected. Most of those entered in the tournament carried only knives or occasionally clubs as auxiliary weapons. With only those weapons to contend with, there was no need for a competitor to wield a sword of such breadth. Perhaps it was simply the only weapon the goblin had trained with.

She lowered herself into a ready stance, a little lower than she normally would, for the goblin was much smaller than her usual opponent—and Leo was not a giant by any measure. When the gong sounded, the goblin sprang forward, sword tip outstretched. She moved as if the armor she wore was nothing, cementing Harry's suspicion that she herself wouldn't be able to win the match with superior speed alone.

 _So much for favoring a defensive style_ , she thought as she leapt backwards out of range. The goblin must have been holding back in her first match. _Well, so was I._

She sprang away in a series of backwards leaps as the goblin moved through a vicious-looking combination of slashing arcs. Harry let her set the pace at first, concentrating on getting a feel for the speed at which the goblin could maneuver. It was more difficult to avoid the long range of the goblin's sword than it was to dance around Leo's knife in the practice ring, but it was not impossible. She just had to keep one eye on the length of the blade. She was lucky the goblin needed two hands to wield her sword and could not use a wand in any case—facing an opponent with a blade so large _and_ magic would have been beyond her, she suspected.

She tested the goblin's strength a couple of times, meeting her blade for blade with her left hand. As she feared, the goblin had a grip like stone and struck with the momentum of a sledgehammer. She would never be able to match her force for force, but with the right consideration of angles she found she could push the blade away from her without losing an arm. That was something, at least. Once satisfied that she could avoid the goblin's sword even without her entire focus devoted to dodging, she brought her magic into play.

She skipped sideways to avoid a biting side-sweep aimed at her right side and pushed off of her left foot where it landed to twist around behind the goblin. The goblin spun with her, twirling on intricate footwork to face her—but she'd already let loose an Impedimenta at point blank. The goblin had no time to avoid it, instead bringing up her sword instinctively to protect her. Harry grinned—she'd been counting on that. The Impedimenta would slow the goblin's sword to a non-threatening speed until it wore off. That would give her time to— _what?_

The spell struck the flat of the goblin's sword and dissipated with a fizzle even as the entire blade lit up with what looked like dozens of runes. Not static runes, either—they moved over the weapon's surface, as though they were swept on a rowdy breeze rather than etched in immutable metal.

Harry barely scrambled out of the path of the goblin's retaliation. The sword had certainly not slowed in the slightest. _The blade doesn't just reflect offensive magic, it absorbs general effect magic, too_ , she thought, frowning behind her goggles as she went on the defensive once more. _That's… inconvenient_. She supposed she ought to have guessed that a goblin wouldn't enter a dueling competition if it didn't have some way to circumvent all aspects of a wizard's magic.

She'd just have to work around the sword, then. She watched the pattern of sweeps as she dodged, noting the time it took the goblin to switch the direction of her sword once it was in motion. Magic moved faster than metal. If she timed it right, she ought to be able to slip a spell past the goblin's ferocious guard. After several attempts, however, she was forced to admit that the goblin was better at catching her spells than she had anticipated. Every time she thought she'd found an opening, the sword moved faster and intercepted the magic. She wondered briefly if the goblin was toying with her, but decided it was more likely that she simply couldn't keep up that speed for a long period of time, and so was reserving bursts of speed for those times she could not move out of the path of a spell.

Resigned to doing something stupid, Harry moved to close with the goblin. She braced her right forearm against her left wrist and met the goblin's blade with all the strength of both arms. They locked and Harry grunted in exertion even as the goblin pressed forward, sensing an advantage, no doubt. Careful to look as though all her attention was on keeping the goblin's sword away from her chest, Harry readied a spell and twisted her wand arm at the last moment, sending the bolt of a Bombardment Hex directly into the goblin's chest plate. Doing so undermined any pressure she could have continued to bring against the goblin's sword, so she disengaged and ducked into a dive-roll to escape the blade's rapid descent. She straightened a few meters away, expecting to see the goblin blasted back to the other side of the arena. Instead, she was leaping right for her.

Harry leapt out of the sword's path again, thoroughly bewildered. There was not a single scratch on the goblin's armor, but she knew the spell had connected.

As she bent low beneath a sweep that could have divested her head from her shoulders, she heard the goblin growl with gravelly amusement. "You think I wear this armor for fun, boy?"

 _Of course the armor is impervious to magic, too_ , Harry thought, annoyed at herself for not having considered that possibility.

She put on a burst of speed to get more space between them, then tried a spell she'd been reluctant to use in a friendly match. "Confringo." She put a fair bit of magic behind it, confident that, if it did connect, the runes would muffle its effects. With luck, just enough explosive power would get through to knock the goblin to the ground. A disadvantage of armor was how difficult it was to fall gently while inside it.

The goblin caught the spell easily, and while her sword shook slightly as it absorbed the magic, it didn't reverberate enough to loosen the goblin's grip. Harry and the goblin both paused for a moment to catch their breath, the distance between them not one that could be closed in an instant. Now what? She could try an even more powerful spell, but she didn't really want to hurt the goblin. This wasn't a fight to the death, and escalating the power involved would only look like an admission that she couldn't win on skill alone.

She decided to try a little ranged action. With the distance between them, she finally had enough time to pull off more complicated magic. Time to get creative. She whipped her wand to the fore, moving it as fast as she dared without sacrificing the exactness necessary for the spell. Rocks were conjured into existence from the ground beneath her, hovering like a loosely constructed wall before her chest. The goblin was dashing near, but Harry was already banishing the first few toward the goblin's approaching form, bombarding her with Quaffle-sized rocks that forced her to slow and either avoid them or strike them out of her way. From the ringing of sound as stone met metal, she deduced that the armor was not spelled to repel physical attacks the same way it dissipated magical ones. That meant she still had a chance.

The goblin fought through the rocks impressively fast, closing once more in hand-to-hand—or rather, knife-to-sword—combat. Harry was starting to feel her muscles complain, but she still had a little while before they would go on strike and abandon her completely. Judging by the way the goblin kicked up some of the dust that had accumulated on the stage deliberately the next time they turned around one another, she was tiring as well. Leo said most people would start resorting to dirty tricks once they were sufficiently fatigued—it was a sign of haste and meant the fighter was hoping to end things quickly.

Unfortunately for the goblin, Harry's goggles were spelled for clear sight. No amount of dust in the world would cloud her vision. She slid under, over, and around the goblin's blade with the ease, causing the goblin to grumble something in annoyed Gobbledegook under her breath. As Harry turned her next stroke aside with her knife, the goblin kicked out unexpectedly and caught her right between the legs. She stumbled backwards with the force of it, but recovered to flawlessly twirl around the thrust that followed and go in for an attack of her own aimed at the goblin's vulnerable neck gap.

The goblin leapt backwards easily, but Harry caught the growl of frustration from beneath the golden helm. She smirked in response. It would have been a punishing move, had she had anything between her legs to debilitate. As it was, she'd probably be incredibly sore there later, but her brain hadn't shut down involuntarily as the goblin no doubt expected.

The crowd was booing, but both of them ignored it. All was fair in freedueling, after all. There was no referee to step in and politely reprimand her opponent for 'ungentlemanly conduct.'

They kept on, Harry largely on the defensive. She was hoping she'd be able to tire the goblin out. It was probably sweltering in that armor, and Harry knew that stamina was one of her strengths. If she could draw the match out long enough, she might be able to overwhelm the goblin at the end. In theory.

The goblin was obviously not planning to carry this on much longer, however. She came at Harry with an overhead slash, but even as Harry sidestepped it, the goblin let go of her sword with her left hand, wielding it one-handed for the first time. Her other hand went to her belt and drew a small knife, the sheath of which had been _very_ effectively hidden until now. Harry attempted to bring her knife up to bat the little blade away before the sword could change direction and come back around, but the goblin twisted the tiny knife at the last minute and swept it up toward her face. Harry flinched away from it, but felt a burning trail of cold fire across her cheek—she hadn't been able to avoid it completely.

She retreated instinctively, the back of her hand coming up to her face to check the damage. Before she'd taken two steps backward, however, she felt a sliding sensation across her cheek and her vision went black. Blindly, she rolled out of the way of what she was sure would be a swift follow-up attack, fumbling to remove the obstruction from her eyes as she hastened as far from the sound of clinking armor as she could.

The strap of her goggles had been severed, and she belatedly realized the true reason for the goblin's slash at her face as she detangled the remains from her face and tossed them aside. When she looked up, the goblin was further away than she'd thought she'd be. She realized why when she saw her opponent readying the small knife in her left hand for a throw.

Several things went though her head in quick succession. The goblin had cut away her goggles because she assumed Harry needed them to see clearly—not a bad assumption, as they were the type of goggles usually used in place of glasses in a duel. She had no way of knowing that Harry's vision was corrected by the Modified Polyjuice she was always under, which meant her goggles were merely for the benefit of those who knew Harry _should_ wear glasses. The next thing she thought was that the goblin must assume she was nearsighted. That was why she kept her distance. She was going to throw the knife and take advantage of Harry's blurry vision; if her vision was sufficiently bad, she'd be helpless to dodge the projectile. The last thing she thought before the knife was released was that this was the chance she'd been waiting for.

Harry kept her gaze unfocused, moving her head back and forth slightly as though disorientated. She stumbled forward a couple of steps, then back again, unsurely. She eventually settled into a defiant stance, her head turned to a spot several feet from where the goblin actually stood. She knew she looked utterly idiotic—the groans and gasps from the crowd, even muffled by the barrier, were enough to tell her she presented the picture of a deer about to be run down by a carriage.

It was hard to hold back a grin as she watched the goblin line up her shot almost lazily. She kept the knife in her peripheral vision even as she frowned and squinted into the empty air with a frightened expression. She brandished her wand in the goblin's general direction, whispering a Summoning Charm at a register too quiet for anyone to hear. The goblin didn't react to the wand, no doubt assuming the lack of visible magic meant Harry hadn't done anything yet. The helmet on her head probably muffled the sounds around her—if she was right, the goblin wouldn't notice the effects of her spell until it was too late.

The goblin released the knife, and it soared in a beautifully straight line toward her torso. If Harry didn't move at all, the knife would strike her in the left shoulder. It made her think better of the goblin, that she wasn't aiming to kill her supposedly blind opponent. That didn't mean she was going to let the goblin win, however.

It went against her every instinct to stand perfectly still as the knife flew toward her. She was trained to take out threats as soon as she could, to give herself time to react to whatever came next, but in this instance she waited until the very last moment before dropping her own knife to the dirt and plucking the goblin's little blade out of the air a hairsbreadth from her chest. It was the work of an instant to fling the knife back at the goblin, pushing a Banishing Charm in its wake without pause.

The crowd gasped and cheered dramatically, but Harry couldn't spare a moment to be gratified by their surprise. She scooped her knife up and ran full tilt toward the goblin. Her opponent had her hand up to catch the knife, but when the Banishing Charm caught up to the projectile it rocketed forward with a sudden burst of speed. Shocked, the goblin ducked backwards hastily to avoid the terrifyingly fast-moving weapon. Harry was there in its wake, however. She came in fast, sweeping her knife out before her like a viper. The goblin retreated to recover her balance, but thanks to Harry's earlier Summoning Charm, she backed into the path of several large rocks. With a grunt of surprise, the goblin stumbled wildly, unable to find stable ground. In that moment, Harry tackled her, using her superior height and the leverage of her sure footing to topple the goblin to the dirt.

The goblin attempted to bring her sword to bear, but Harry, by virtue of being literally above the goblin, now had the advantage of position and momentum she needed to knock the blade back. She knelt on the goblin's arms and came to a stop with her blade and wand crossed in clear threat at the goblin's exposed neck. The goblin froze for a long moment, then growled angrily as the announcer's voice cried out, "Winner: Harry!"

They both relaxed, Harry just managing to move off the goblin before collapsing tiredly on the ground. She was completely out of breath and every inch of her ached. She thanked the gods this was her last match for the day—there was just no way she'd be able to muster the energy for anything beyond scarfing down some food after this. Groaning at the effort, she forced herself to stand up and stow her weapons properly. The goblin was sitting up, struggling to remove her helmet with arms that were obviously weak from exertion.

When she had it off, she stood with a clanking sigh and glared up at Harry. "You tricked me, _girlie_ ," she spat. "Twice."

Harry grinned a bit apologetically. "To be fair, you assumed I was a boy on your own."

"You entered under a male pseudonym," the goblin scowled, sheathing her sword and starting toward the stairs.

"It's a nickname," she told her, catching up and holding out a hand. "Short for Harriett."

The goblin considered her, then slapped a mailed hand against hers briefly. "Goldflame."

"That's a lovely name," Harry offered.

"It's an exceedingly common name, for a goblin," her defeated opponent drawled.

"Harry is pretty common for humans, too," Harry said with a smile.

The goblin scoffed. "There's nothing common about you, girlie. You're as tricky as a sphinx."

"Thanks?" she rubbed her dirt-encrusted neck awkwardly.

They descended from the stage and passed off their armbands to the next competitors. Goldflame's brother—Greystrike, she remembered Leo saying—clapped his sister on the armored shoulder with a clang. "Good bout, Goldflame."

"Nothing good about losing," Goldflame snorted. She stalked off toward one of the water dispensaries with a last, annoyed glare at Harry.

The other goblin paused before going after her. He looked at Harry appraisingly, then said, "Don't mind my den-sister. She hates to lose. Still, it is better to lose to cunning than to be outclassed in skill."

Harry didn't think she'd been particularly cunning so much as she had simply taken advantage of the assumptions of her opponent, but she nodded in any case. "It was a difficult win. I'm glad to have fought your sister."

"Good luck in your next match," the goblin said gruffly, heading off to join his sister.

"You as well," she called after him, waving tiredly.

"Making new friends?" Leo had come up behind her some time while she was talking to the goblin siblings.

"Hey," she said. The greeting was almost a sigh, she was so exhausted. "How was that?"

"Terrifying," Leo said, ducking down to haul her right arm over his shoulders. He began walking slowly toward the Duelers' Tent, hauling most of her weight. "You never told _me_ you can see just fine without your glasses. I thought she was going to impale you, and my promise about you not getting stabbed would be dust in the wind."

Harry smiled apologetically. "Didn't mean to worry you." She stopped walking suddenly, causing Leo to stumble as he took her full weight without warning. "My goggles… "

"Here," Leo said, pressing the remains of her eyewear into her hands. "Aled collected it from the arena when he cleared it for the next match. Don't know why you bother, though—you obviously don't need them." Aled must be who the third ward key was given to, she thought idly as she turned the goggles over in her hands. They were dirty and a bit scuffed, but the lenses looked okay. She would repair the strap when she had more energy.

She tucked them away into her pocket and let Leo escort her the rest of the way, mumbling, "They're spelled to magnify long distances. Plus, they make people underestimate me."

"Not after today," Leo chuckled. "Your next opponent is going to be very wary, I daresay."

"They should be," she muttered halfheartedly. "I'm ferocious."

"As ferocious as a kitten at the moment," Leo said, shaking his head as he deposited her at a table under the pavilion. "I'll get you a water."

She lifted her head to thank him, but he was already gone. She blinked tiredly around her and caught sight of Rispah sitting across from her. "You're not a competitor," she said blankly.

Rispah laughed. "I'm the entertainment," she said, looking very out of place lounging in her tightly laced corset amidst a group of tired, dirty freeduelers. "Anyway, there are plenty of seats, now. How does it feel—making top 16?"

She grinned at that. She had, hadn't she? "Feels… unexpected," she said after a moment of poking her brain until it came up with an adjective.

"Unexpected?" Leo was back, with a full cup of water that she half-drank, half-spilled over herself. "Give yourself a little credit, Harry—or rather, give me a little credit. I trained you, after all."

"You gave her the knife skills," Rispah said with a languid smirk. "The cleverness is all our Harry, though—devilishly tricky, she is." Harry made a noise of protest at the female pronoun, but Rispah waved her off with a pitying look. "Little late for that now, Harry, dear. The whole stadium saw you haven't got the bollocks to back that up."

Harry had to laugh at that. She supposed her little deception was well out of the bag, now. Ah, well. It had been useful while it lasted. Hopefully the others wouldn't treat her any differently knowing she was female. She thought Marek might be a bit miffed at the way she and Leo had yanked him around over her gender, though. She'd have to make it up to him, somehow.

She stayed until the other matches had ended, by which time she felt recovered enough to make the trip home. She knew she garnered a few looks as she trudged back through Diagon Alley to the Floo; she was filthy, too tired to bother hiding her slumped posture, and she probably reeked to high heaven. The only saving grace was that it wasn't quite five o'clock yet, which meant she would have time to shower the filth from herself before her parents got home.

She stumbled into the Floo room and barely caught herself before she tipped headfirst into the mantelpiece. The house was quiet, so she didn't think to be quiet herself as she dragged her way toward the stairs.

"Harry?"

She bit back a curse and swayed to a stop. What were the odds that today Remus decided to watch Addy at their house? Sometimes Sirius watched her, so… one in three? She shook the vague calculations from her head distractedly and turned to see Remus observing her from the kitchen doorway.

"Hi Remus," she said, cocking her head casually. "Where's Addy?"

His eyes swept her from head to boot. "Still napping—she had trouble getting to sleep today after Sirius slipped her a sugar wand at lunch. What happened to you?"

She shrugged. "What do you mean? It was just really dusty in Diagon today, so—"

"You look like you've been in a brawl." Remus' voice was flat.

"Oh, that," she said, smiling sheepishly. "Well, I was practicing my dueling with a friend—I'm getting really good, Remus!"

"I know, I see you in action every weekend," Remus said, alluding to their training sessions while looking unimpressed with her explanation. "That looks like a knife cut," he said, gesturing to her face.

She winced, bringing up a hand to finger the dried blood awkwardly. She'd forgot that was there. "Oh."

"An explanation, please," Remus said, deceptively mild. "And don't bother lying."

"I don't know what to say," she said. She was really too tired to think up a convincing explanation.

"Allow me, then," Remus said softly. "You spend most of every day out of the house, ostensibly running errands in Diagon or spending time with your friend Leo. Most days you don't come home with any packages or shopping bags. This isn't the first time you've shown up sweaty, dirty, and tired. Judging by the annoyed expression on your face when I mentioned it, your face is cut up because you simply forgot it was there and so neglected to heal it before coming home, not because you've never been injured before. Just what are you up to, Harry?"

"Just practicing with Leo," she said. "Honest. He's been helping me with my dueling, too."

"Does his help involve you spending the entire lesson in the dirt?" Remus asked.

"He has a… unique style of dueling," she said, a bit helplessly.

"Not—" Remus broke off, searching her face and eyeing the cut on her cheek in particular. "Freedueling?" The last was a bare whisper. His expression said he was both shocked and concerned. "Harry, that's… well, it's illegal, for starters."

"Technically only tournaments are illegal," she said weakly.

"It's also very dangerous," Remus said, his voice a little stronger as his visage grew sterner. "If you don't know what you're doing, you could get really hurt. You shouldn't be messing around with that sort of thing."

"I'm not," she promised. "Leo is really good. He'd never let me get hurt." Remus gazed pointedly at the blood on her face. She flushed. "That was someone else. It was a practice bout against a… friend. I won," she added, grinning with pride.

Remus sighed. "Your parents are not going to like this."

"We don't have to tell them," Harry said quickly. "They don't know about our dueling lessons, right?"

"Of course they do," Remus said slowly.

"Oh," she said. "They… never mentioned it."

"Neither did you, apparently." Remus sighed. He rubbed his temple somewhat forlornly. "Harry, you really ought to communicate better with your parents. Do they have any idea you're putting yourself in harm's way so cavalierly?"

"I told you it isn't like that," Harry said, frowning. "I'm just learning a new skill from my friend. Leo is an expert at this stuff. I'm learning a lot, okay?"

"But why?" Remus pressed. "What's the point if you can never use it in practice? As you said, freedueling in any formal sense is illegal."

Harry looked away. "I'm not learning it for its formal virtues, Uncle Remus. I'm learning for self-defense. Same as my training with you."

"Why this concentration on self-defense?" Remus asked. "I know I asked you before, when we started, but you answered a little vaguely."

"It's just… common sense, isn't it?" she said. She had no real reason to give Remus, at least no reason _Harry_ could give him. Rigel on the other hand… he had plenty of reasons to want to be able to defend himself.

Remus looked as though he wanted to press her, but in the end decided on a different angle. "Where are these lessons taking place, exactly? Are you at his house every day?" She could tell he was thinking ruefully that James would throw a fit if that were the case.

"Not exactly," she said. "I really do go to Diagon every day. There's a place there where we practice."

"In Diagon Alley?" Remus looked incredibly skeptical.

"Nearby," Harry confirmed vaguely.

Remus stared at her for a long moment. "Harry, I'm not trying to get you in trouble. You know that, right? This isn't about busting you for anything. I just want to know you're safe. You come home looking like you've lost a bar fight and I… well, what am I to think?"

She grimaced. She wasn't trying to be unreasonable, she just didn't know how to explain what she'd been doing without revealing everything about her activities in the lower alleys. Her uncle looked like he knew she was holding back quite a bit and was debating forcing her hand. She held up a hand to let him know she needed a moment and slumped against the wall, thinking hard. Should she tell him? She didn't think he'd be thrilled, exactly, but… it was Remus. Not Sirius, who never took anything seriously and wouldn't understand why she needed this. Not James, who was so overprotective he wouldn't even hear her explanations out before forbidding her from going back. It was _Remus_. Remus, who already supported her learning self-defense: Remus, who taught dueling and encouraged self-betterment in any form: Remus, who understood about the darker places a person's mind could take them to, whatever the reason: Remus, who knew all about personal demons and how to keep them at bay. Maybe… he would get it.

She looked up at him cautiously, consideringly. "Remus… if you had a choice between knowing something but having to keep it a secret from your friends or not knowing and being able to say honestly that you didn't know… which would you choose?"

"Is this your way of telling me that you'll only tell me what's going on if I keep it from your parents?" Remus asked wryly.

"Subtle, I know," Harry smiled weakly. "So? Which way do you want it?"

"What makes you think I won't ask you to tell me and then turn around and tell your parents anyway?" Remus asked, a curious glint in his eyes.

"You respect people's confidences," Harry said immediately. "It's one of your principles. When Uncle Sirius had to go see a Mind Healer after Aunt Diana passed, you covered for his absences until he was ready to talk about it with Mum and Dad."

"You knew about that, huh?" Remus didn't seem too surprised. She simply nodded and waited for him to make his decision. He grimaced lightly. "I feel like you've put me in a tight spot, here. In the end, though… I'd rather someone know what you're up to. Then if you need help, you have someone to come to without having to worry about explaining yourself first."

Harry searched his face, but he seemed certain, so she let out a long breath. "Okay. I need to shower, and then I need to eat all of the food in the kitchen. After that, we can talk."

Remus nodded his acceptance and retreated into the kitchen to wait. She hauled her aching body up the stairs and into the bathroom to clean up. As she scrubbed away the dirt, she tried to organize in her mind the things she'd tell Remus. He didn't need to know everything she'd ever done in the alleys, and she could probably be vague about the timeline in most instances. She also didn't want to reveal too much about the Court of the Rogues—for all that Leo was a huge part of her time in the alleys, he was also technically a criminal, and her father was technically the head of the Auror Department. There was no need to put Remus in an even more uncomfortable position than he already was.

Part of her debated the wisdom of getting into all of this with her uncle, but he made a good point. It would be nice to have someone she could go to, if she or someone she knew needed help. It also meant that if something happened to her while she was in the alleys, at least one person would have an idea of where to look. When Archie came back, it would be two people; that was practically a safety net.

She entered the kitchen to find that her uncle had been busy while she was upstairs. There was a veritable spread of food on the table, and it was all she could do to refrain from falling on it with an embarrassing amount of eagerness. When she'd put at least half of it into her stomach she slowed, then stopped and turned her attention to Remus, who was waiting very patiently in the chair across the table.

"So, I suppose you've guessed I'm not spending all my time actually in Diagon Alley," she began, pausing to swish a gulp of milk down her gullet before continuing. "How much do you know about the lower alleys?"

Remus frowned slightly. "No more than necessary. It's home to all sorts of less than savory characters, and James often has to send a team down that way to raid shops suspected to be operating on the black market."

"Anything else?" she prompted when he stopped to think.

"It's also the site of a good amount of low-income housing, I believe," Remus said, a bit unsurely. "I think I've heard there's a coven that claims part of the territory as their own, as well."

"Two, actually," Harry said, "but the majority of the residents are low-income humans, like you said. There's a high percentage of Squibs and orphans, compared to the general population statistics. There's the shady part of the lower alleys, off of Knockturn, which is what most people think of when they hear the term, but beyond Knockturn there's an entire community of Wizarding folk who just want to keep to themselves. They have their own shops, markets, neighborhoods, and sense of citizenship. There's a loose educational system in place for children, a clinic that sees to their healthcare needs, and a sort of… government that they all contribute to. It makes sure the streets are clean, sets up public facilities like Floo and Apparition points, and keeps the peace when it can."

"How do you know all this?" Remus asked, leaning forward across the table on his elbows. He looked torn between being fascinated and overwhelmed.

"I've sort of become a… peripheral member of this community," she said carefully. "I know a lot of the people who live there, and some of my friends help contribute to the organization that keeps the whole thing self-sufficient."

"Leo?" Remus looked skeptical again. "Isn't he the son of the Aldermaster of the Potions Guild?"

"He is," Harry said, attempting to shrug off Leo's exact role as unimportant. "His mother runs the clinic in the lower alleys, though, so they know almost everyone there. Mrs. Hurst used to work in the children's ward at St. Mungo's, which is how she got the hospital to subsidize a large part of the clinic's expenses—she even knows Sirius."

"That sounds like a respectable endeavor," Remus said. He looked a little relieved that there were parts of her explanation he could check himself.

"It is," she said, trying to give him every reason to accept her activities as not-that-dangerous. "My friend Hermione—from AIM—even volunteers there as an assistant Healer."

"Really?" Remus looked mildly surprised. "My, this new generation is certainly more altruistic than we were at your age."

"It's important to help people when you can," Harry said seriously. "That's what the lower alley community is all about. Everyone helps one another however they can. Bakers and grocers donate food, which is then redistributed to those in need. People with special skills donate their time to teaching the alley's children. Everyone looks out for one another. I know when people think about the lower alleys they think thieves and cutthroats, and I'm not saying none of that ever happens, but it's mostly outsiders who are in danger down those alleys. If you contribute to the community, the community looks out for you."

She was laying it on a bit thick, not to mention glossing over the entire sub-community of violence and crime that existed inescapably wherever poverty and desperation did, but she thought it was working—Remus at least seemed to be considering what she was saying.

"What do you contribute, then?" he asked. "Why would they look out for you, as you say, if you are an outsider?"

"Ah, right," she said, looking a bit sheepish. "I actually have a job at an apothecary there, and my employer pays a tithe on my behalf that goes toward the community. Also, like I said, I know a lot of people through Mrs. Hurst and her son. Everyone comes through the clinic eventually."

That was slightly misleading, since the reason she knew so many people was because Leo ran the Court, but he didn't need to know the exact progression of events, just the outcomes.

"You… have a job?" Remus appeared to be stuck on that point.

"I brew potions," she said, nodding cheerfully. It was nice to say it so candidly.

"James mentioned that you were going to try marketing your creations commercially," Remus said, looking a little confused. "He just brought it up recently, though."

"That's true," she said, a bit sheepishly. "I've just started letting my employer sell the Protection Potion, but in truth I've been working for him for a while. It's not that I need the money," she said quickly, interpreting Remus' expression as largely bewildered. "It's just satisfying, using my skills for something other than practice. It's how I got Master Hurst's attention, actually, and since then Horace Burke has started commissioning some of my potions, too, so it's actually been really good for building up experience and credibility in the potions community—"

"Slow down, Harry," Remus said. He looked both amused and exasperated. "Is that why you spend so much time in your lab? You're brewing as a full-time job?"

"Not full-time," Harry said thoughtfully. "I'm a pretty efficient brewer, so it doesn't take me nearly that many hours a week to fill my quota. Anyway, don't look at me like I'm wasting my youth; I like brewing. I'd be brewing potions all the time anyway, and this way I can make some gold and establish a name for myself."

"How have we not heard about this?" Remus asked. "It's not exactly usual for a thirteen-year-old to be running her own brewing company."

"It's nothing so involved," she said, chuckling a bit. "I just brew a few potions and pass them off to others. They do all the distribution work. Anyway, it's not unusual for people to start working young in the lower alleys."

"Do they know who you are?" Remus asked next. "I know they're your friends, Harry, but… your family is in the Book of Gold. And they have a lot of gold. For some, that might be temptation enough. Add to that your status as Heiress to the line and… "

She shook her head. "Most people don't. Leo, of course, and my employer. That's about it. I just go by Harry there."

His lips quirked. "At least you aren't entirely foolish."

"Don't pass judgment yet," Harry said, a mischievous grin coming to her face. "I haven't told you about the friends I made in the vampire coven yet."

Remus blanched, but recovered when he saw the joking smile on her face. "That isn't funny, Harry. You're going to give me grey hairs." After a moment's pause, he said, "You still haven't explained about the freedueling."

"Well, it is dangerous to walk around the alleys if you don't have some form of self-defense," she said reasonably. "One of the first things that happened when I joined the community was Leo teaching me hand-to-hand and then knife fighting."

"Knife—"

"We practice with blunted blades," Harry said quickly. "It's really quite safe. And educational." Her uncle gave her a look that said he was not impressed with her attempt to appeal to his occupational sensibilities. "Anyway, lots of people in the lower alleys learn freedueling, so it's nothing unusual. Actually, between Leo's lessons and yours, I'm getting pretty skilled. I won both of my matches today and—"

She broke off with an awkward cough, mentally kicking herself for getting excited. She could have skipped that part without alerting Remus to anything untoward, but no, she had to get carried away, didn't she? This was why it was better to just keep all of your secrets, because as soon as you told one the others got easier to spill somehow, the way taking a couple of stones out of a wall could cause the whole castle to come crumbling down.

"Go on," Remus said, tone deceptively light. "You were saying something about matches. I'm very curious to know what, after you attempted to convince me earlier that freedueling wasn't _technically_ illegal as long as it wasn't practiced _formally_."

"Well, I may have misled you about what I was doing today," she admitted with a wince, "but this is the first time! Before this it really was just practicing."

"Harry, your father will have to _arrest_ you if he finds out about this," Remus groaned, putting his head into his hands and rubbing his eyes.

"So it's really great that I have such an understanding uncle who supports his niece's hobbies even when they conflict with certain family members' oaths of office," she said, laughing nervously. She didn't think Remus would really say anything about the tournament to her dad, since it would mean turning her in to be charged as well, but she really hadn't meant to so carelessly reveal _that_ card.

"Is it over now, at least?" Remus asked, lifting his head to reveal a pained expression on his face.

"Almost," Harry said brightly. "I have two matches tomorrow, but the second one is against Leo if I win the first one, so it's very unlikely I'll still be in after that."

"What's ironic is that all of James' irrational fears about Leo being a bad influence on his precious little girl are completely vindicated, but for reasons even he couldn't have imagined," Remus said. Harry thought he was taking it all rather well, if he still had time to find the dramatic irony in the situation. "What time is the first match?"

Harry verbally backpedaled as fast as she could. "Oh, it's really early. You wouldn't want to come, it's quite a hike and they don't really welcome outsiders to this kind of thing. Security is probably pretty tight, too, and you shouldn't get involved in anything illegal anyway, in case my dad does find out. It would be a shame if Addy lost both of her favorite people in one fell swoop." That was sheer exaggeration. Addy adored Remus these days, but was largely indifferent to Harry's presence—probably because she was never around.

Remus waited patiently for her to wind down, then asked again. "What time is it?"

"Mine's the second match," she admitted ruefully. "I'll have to get there when it starts at eight. Don't you have to watch Addy, though? She won't like all the noise."

"Sirius has her tomorrow," he said, narrowing his eyes at her. "You won't leave without me."

"I really don't think you'll find it interesting—"

"You won't leave without me." Remus's quiet certainty was as intimidating as if he'd shouted.

"Right," Harry said. Really, she knew better than to argue with Remus. Anyone else she could talk into or out of almost anything she wanted. Remus, however, could be _very stubborn_ when he wanted. "I'll just meet you in the Leaky Cauldron, shall I?"

"We may as well," Remus said, looking troubled once more. "No need to prompt your parents to ask awkward questions like _where are you going_ and _what are you doing_ and _who are you doing it with_ , is there? That would be entirely too normal."

"I think avoiding those questions is incredibly normal for a teenager," Harry said thoughtfully.

"And James still thinks you're the responsible one." Remus sighed.

"He's easily bored by me," Harry corrected the man. "And he equates boredom with rule-following and risk-aversion and maturity. That's why it was so easy to blame Archie for everything when we were young. Sirius and James both expect troublemakers to be boisterous and emotional, because that's how they are. They understand the kind of mischief that makes your eyes laugh and your toes tap with impatience. They don't understand the kind of trouble you can get into _quietly_ and _methodically_ and _carefully_."

Remus looked at her, and it wasn't the amused understanding she'd expected. Usually he appreciated dry observations about the relative immaturity of their most playful family members. This time, he only looked regretful. "You call him James," he said quietly.

She blinked. Had she? "Not all the time," she assured him. "Just when it's 'James and Sirius.' They're like a paired set, right?"

Her uncle didn't return her smile. "I don't think your father is bored by you," he told her seriously.

"Not me personally," she said, shaking her head. He was twisting what she'd said. "Just my interests bore him. You know he hates Potions."

"That's not… " Remus looked unsure how to explain. "It isn't as simple as simply disliking the subject. It carries a lot of negative connotations for him, from school, and it's hard for him to think about it without thinking about other things, too."

"I know," Harry said, frowning. "He hates Master Snape for something to do with Mum that no one ever bothers to really explain beyond the fact that they were friends and then suddenly everyone hated one another." She waved off Remus' uncomfortable look. "I'm not asking for the details. It's not my business. I'm just saying I get it. I don't blame Dad for his opinion on the subject. That doesn't mean I don't see it when it affects me, though. I still remember him 'accidentally' using my first stirring rod as a fire poker and twisting it beyond recognition."

"Not his finest moment," Remus admitted with a grimace.

"Look, it doesn't matter," she said. "I love my dad. He has a lot of great qualities that make him an excellent father and role model. I just… see him clearly. It's not a bad thing. I think it means more to love people for who they are—maybe even despite it—not because of some ideal you have of them in your head. I think caring about someone after you've seen the flaws is an advantage. It means you can love them without ever being taken by surprise."

"Maybe you're right," Remus said. He leaned back, and seemed to cast around for something to lighten the mood before settling on, "What are my flaws, then?"

"You're too observant," she groaned at once. "All summer I've got away with my excuses, and then you take one look at me and tear my misdirections to pieces."

"It was a great deal more than a single look," her uncle laughed. "This realization has been a long time coming. I just didn't have the final piece until today."

And she'd handed it over without a fight, of course. Every time she thought her deceptions had grown to a level that was nearly impenetrable, something like this happened to remind her that, for all her experience in weaving illusions, there were those who had at least an equal capacity for unraveling them.

"Mum and Dad should be home soon," she said, glancing at the clock on the wall. She looked at the decimated remains of food on the table regretfully. "They're going to wonder why I ate right before dinner."

"I'll tell them you didn't feel well," Remus said, reaching for the dishes. "Just go upstairs and rest—you look exhausted."

She frowned. "I don't want you to lie for me, Remus. That's not why I told you."

"I know," her uncle said, waving off her attempts to help him clear the dishes. "I'm the adult, though, and that means I get to decide which circumstances to involve myself in. Let me take care of things tonight."

It felt… odd, she decided. She felt guilty that he would go to the trouble on her behalf, but also strangely gratified. "Thanks, Remus," she said. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"See you tomorrow," he agreed.

On her way out, a thought struck her. "It might be a good idea to wear a disguise," she said thoughtfully. "In case Regulus Black shows up or something."

"What?" Remus' voice called after her with panic lacing every syllable. "What does that mean, Harry?"

"Shh," she frowned at him over her shoulder. "You'll wake Addy. It probably won't happen, but just in case, okay?"

A defeated-sounding groan was her only answer. She headed upstairs and collapsed on her comforter with a tired sigh, letting go of the cheerfully unrepentant attitude she'd been channeling. She thought she'd done a good job convincing her uncle that her activities in the alley were harmless—the thoughtless adventure of a teenaged kid, rather than a deep commitment to a world that freed her from the pressures of maintaining multiple façades at once.

Things had grown both more and less complicated in the past hour. More, because she'd involved Remus in a part of her life she was starting to see could never have remained entirely separate from her regular existence. It would have been too easy, she supposed. Things were also less complicated, though, because as the two spheres merged, the lies she told became fewer. She could count on Remus' help now, too, and that was not something to be counted lightly.

She buried her filthy clothes in the laundry hamper and set about repairing the strap on her goggles for the next morning. It was a simple bit of magic, and before long she was able to close her eyes and drift off into a well-earned sleep.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

Her nervousness the next morning easily rivaled the anxious excitement she'd felt the day before, but it was for entirely different reasons. She glanced sidelong at the scruffily dressed man walking beside her through Kyprioth Court. Uncle Remus had opted to don a faded black over-robe that hung open lazily to reveal plain grey trousers and a white T-shirt. He'd left his face uncovered apart from where his sandy brown hair fell across his brow, but she supposed the odds of someone recognizing him were pretty slim. It wasn't as though he was going to be up on stage; it was astronomically unlikely that someone he knew would happen to pick him out of the crowd.

His reactions were subtler than Hermione's had been—sharper, too. He seemed to take in more than just a visual impression of the landscape his eyes were soaking in. From the outside he looked unassuming enough, she supposed. With a relaxed, hands-in-his-pockets posture, he strolled leisurely, as though it were a walk he took daily rather than a trek through unfamiliar terrain. He didn't react when a pair of dusty children wove between him and Harry on their way to the tournament grounds. When one of them called, "Hiya Harry!" over his shoulder, Remus ignored that, too. Unlike Hermione, he asked no questions and appeared to require no explanations.

Upon reaching the outskirts of tents and stalls, Remus did perk up with interest slightly. His eyes moved a little faster and his mouth relaxed further into a pleasant smile. She had to break off her careful observation when she heard her name called from the shade of a nearby fruit stand. She glanced apologetically at her companion and motioned for him to wait a moment while she went to see what Mrs. Fairlay wanted.

-0

[RlRlRl]

-0

He watched curiously as Harry trotted off to converse with the middle-aged woman running one of the many stands that surrounded them. Harry laughed softly at something the woman said, looking both embarrassed and pleased as she was handed a pair of apples. His niece attempted to exchange a coin for the fruit, but the stall keeper waved her off with an admonition that it was for good luck.

Harry ducked her head in an endearing show of gratitude and jogged back to where Remus was standing. "Sorry," she said. "Mrs. Fairlay is rather insistent. Want one?" She held out an apple. He took it with a smile, holding it up in a 'cheers'-ing motion that made Harry laugh and clink her apple to his before taking a large bite.

"Quite a crowd here," he commented, taking a bite himself. It was surprisingly good for an apple that had been given away for free.

"This is nothing," Harry said, eyes alight. "Up ahead, see the flags? That's where the real fairgrounds are."

Remus peered in the direction she'd indicated and felt his eyes attempt to drift without his impetus. A ward, then. _Subtle_ , he thought, fighting against the compulsion to ignore it as he adjusted his Sight to see the magic itself. He could feel it pushing back against his concentration and admitted to some difficulty keeping track of the patterns of magic his perception afforded him. A ward that disrupted even the attention of those actively bending their minds to paying attention to it—that was no easy feat.

A suspicion crept over him. Hadn't Harry mentioned Regulus Black in a glaringly facetious manner the previous evening? Had she been serious about his involvement in this? The quality of the wards they were approaching said yes, most probably.

"Oh—there's an entrance fee," Harry said, looking suddenly uncomfortable.

"I brought my money," he assured her, amused. His niece was not usually so scatterbrained. She was either very nervous or very focused on something else.

He paid for his wristband, noting how one of the guards waved Harry through without even glancing at her competitors' patch. Did he recognize her on sight because of the matches she'd been in the day before or because he knew her? Harry didn't seem to pay any attention to the man, eyes turned ahead and already scanning the interior of the wards with anticipation.

Remus shrugged off a shiver as the magic in the wards slid over him and whistled low as the stadium itself was revealed to him. It was nothing compared to many professional Quidditch stadiums he'd visited, but that wasn't to say it didn't make quite a statement against the backdrop of otherwise quaint streets and alleys. To say he was surprised at the sheer scale of the operation wouldn't quite do his opinion justice. He was having a hard time wrapping his head around the level of organization the intricacy and scope of the spectacle around him suggested.

He followed a pace or two behind Harry. Despite his admittedly parental reasons for accompanying her, he didn't actually want to embarrass the girl by appearing to be hovering. He knew how sensitive teenagers could be about associating with family members while around their peers. Take Archie's near-avoidance behavior the previous year while Remus taught at Hogwarts; if any kid could have been immune to such embarrassment, it ought to have been Sirius' son. Instead, he'd hardly seen his nephew in the nine months he'd been his instructor.

Harry was stopped several more times as they walked around the back side of the stands. He was amazed to realize she hadn't been exaggerating when she said she knew a lot of people around here. One older gentleman even thanked his niece profusely for some advice she'd apparently given him on a chronic cough. That was a point in favor of her spending time around the clinic as she'd said. It wasn't that Remus didn't trust Harry, exactly. It wasn't easy to take everything the girl said at face value, however, especially after learning that she had in fact been essentially misleading them for… actually, he wasn't sure on the exact timeline. Somehow she'd manage to explain things without him noticing that oversight until now.

He supposed it served the Marauders right to end up with such mischievous children. Clearly Lily's influence was mitigating at best.

"This is the duelers' pavilion," Harry said, gesturing to the large covered area behind the stage. "There are only sixteen competitors left, so we can bring friends in if we want." He nodded easily. It didn't matter much to him where they went. "You can meet Leo," the girl added, and the open, somewhat hopeful look on her face told Remus exactly why James' face turned sour whenever the young man was mentioned.

He had to say that the youth who materialized at Harry's shoulder not five minutes later was both everything and nothing like what Remus had expected. The young man had looks enough to tempt, he supposed, and the charm was hard to look past, it was true, yet… how James had so completely misclassified the threat this boy represented was utterly beyond him.

"One of Harry's infamous uncles?" Leo gave up a grin that was as much challenge as invitation. "I'm honored. Come to see our Harry compete, have you?" His stance radiated energy despite its laidback posture. He rested on his heels as if to dare the world to take its best shot. Remus had not missed the way he said 'our' Harry, either. It was a subtle but strong reminder that his niece now belonged to a world her family, for all its wealth and connections, had no place in.

Oh yes, James was right to worry. Not for the reasons he thought, however. Certainly Leo was taken with Harry—any fool could see the way his eyelids lowered slightly when he looked at her, as though her presence alone was enough to relax him—but that fact should have been eclipsed by the presence and authority the boy let off unconsciously. He moved like a fighter and held himself as a leader did. This was no ordinary young man. The fact that James had described him to Remus in terms of his ostensible designs on his daughter's time told him that the Auror had let his fatherly paranoia cloud his ability to judge a man's character.

"The honor is mine," Remus said, amiably enough. "When I heard Harry had found herself a supplementary instructor, I had to see what the fuss was about. Looks like quite a show."

There. Let the boy take that as it was meant: a warning that, no matter whom Harry chose to associate with now, her family would always be the foundation upon which her future was built. If Leo sought to sever that connection and bring Harry into his sphere irrevocably, he had severely underestimated her family's tenacity.

"The show hasn't even started yet," Leo said. His voice was entirely causal, but Remus could tell his message had been received loud and clear. "I hope you see something worth the trip, Mr. Lupin."

"Please, call me Remus," he told the boy. "After all, I feel as though we'll be seeing a lot of one another from here on out."

"I hope that's true," Leo said, holding out a hand to shake his firmly.

Harry looked as though she could tell something had passed between them but couldn't quite grasp the import of the interaction. "Your match should be starting soon, Leo," she said after a pause. "Are you ready?"

"What do you think?" Leo asked, tilting his head in a teasing manner.

Harry rolled her eyes. "Don't take it so lightly. By now, the competition should be really serious."

"Worried for me? I'm touched." It was said in a way that suggested he knew just how to get a rise out of his friend.

"Touched in the head if you think I'm going to the trouble of finding a new sparring partner when you die," Harry shot back. "It would be easier to reanimate your corpse and use it for target practice."

Leo winced, and Remus could sympathize. His niece had always been sharp in her banter—it came from growing up with Lily, James, Sirius, and, he admitted, himself—but at some point she appeared to have grown a tad macabre in the imagery she invoked.

"I'll just, ah, not die then, shall I?" Leo was attempting, and failing, to regain the conversational equilibrium, so Remus took pity on him.

"Is mortal injury likely?" he asked. "Harry came home with quite a nasty cut yesterday, so you can understand my concern."

Leo's posture straightened slightly and he looked directly into Remus' eyes when he said firmly, "Very unlikely. The most serious injury so far was a bloke whose wand arm was disabled by a sword stroke, and Harry already beat the goblin responsible for that. Everyone remaining in the tournament has enough experience to avoid hurting their opponents unduly. The prize is a pretty penny, but it's not worth anyone killing for it. Harry will be fine. If anything happens, we have a team of Healers standing by."

"That's good to know," Remus said, relieved that things did appear to be well in hand. He'd been imagining some sort of back alley knife-fighting club, to be perfectly honest, so the obviously well organized and provisioned event came as a pleasant surprise. Harry hadn't mentioned that goblins were involved, however. Just how big an event was this? "Please convey my respects to the tournament organizers."

Leo's face smoothed into a deceptively blank expression and Remus immediately wondered what he'd done to prompt such a transformation. Leo inclined his head easily enough, however, and, after flicking his eyes briefly in Harry's direction, told him, "You'll know them by the insignia on their shirts. They'll be glad to know all their work is appreciated."

A warning bell went off somewhere over the stands, and Leo bowed to the two of them briefly. "That's my cue. I must warm up. It was a pleasure, Remus. I hope we can talk more after the matches."

"Good luck, Leo!" Harry called after the older youth. She turned to Remus and smiled. "Come on, let's get a good viewing point. The opening entertainment should be starting now."

He followed her to a place beneath a large board depicting the progress of tournament brackets. There was an elevated platform that gave a good view of the raised stage. By the plurality of people with numbered patches on their clothing, he supposed it was meant for competitors who wanted to watch the matches without climbing up into the stands.

Music began to play and his eyes lit on a group of women making their way onstage. Dancers, he decided, as the handful of them took up their positions. The music leapt into a complicated melody that set the women to stepping and twirling in a set of exquisitely choreographed moves designed to ensnare the imagination of all red-blooded men in the audience—and there were quite a few, if the raucous response from the stands was any indication.

He had to admit, they were talented. One in particular seemed to draw the eye without any overt attempt on her part to stand out from the others. There was something subtle to it—just the slightest suggestion of intent in her expression that had Remus thinking she knew exactly what she was doing.

"That's Rispah," Harry said softly from beside him. He turned his head toward her but had trouble tearing his eyes away from the scene before them for a moment longer.

"What?" he asked, finally sparing his niece a glance.

"The one in red," Harry clarified, and Remus realized she was talking about the lead dancer. He wasn't sure if he ought to be embarrassed that his niece had noticed him watching that woman in particular or not. As Harry went on, Remus supposed he could as easily assume she had pointed the woman out for her own reasons. "She's Leo's older cousin. Don't let her pretty face fool you. In addition to being an incredibly talented player, she heads the organizational responsibilities for all the women of the lower alleys."

"Hmm." He acknowledged Harry's words but came up with nothing to say in response. His eyes stayed on the woman in red—Rispah—however. If nothing else, she really was one hell of a dancer.

The entertainment didn't last as long as the crowd might have wished, but their disappointment was fickle. As Leo and his competitor took the stage, tension built back up to a fever pitch. Leo seemed to be the crowd favorite, and it was easy to see why. He was young and eager, all relaxed confidence to his older opponent's rigid stoicism.

As soon as the match began, it was clear who held the advantage. To the casual observer, it might seem that Leo was letting his opponent control the pacing, merely responding passively to whatever moves his larger counterpart made. Remus could see the truth, though. Leo's every response determined the next move his opponent would have to make. The young man drew the match out admirably, no doubt aware that everyone here had paid for a good show, but that's all it was—a show. He could see after the first few minutes why Harry's friend carried himself with so much self-possession. He was incredibly skilled for his age. It was no wonder Harry had sought him out as an instructor.

"Your friend certainly does seem to know what he's doing," Remus commented as Leo's opponent began to flag.

"He's the favorite to win the whole thing," Harry said. There was pride in her voice, and Remus could tell she admired Leo Hurst greatly. Whether that admiration would ever evolve into anything else was unclear. He doubted Harry had any interest in such things as yet. She was more than old enough, of course, but it was more a personality barrier than a physiological one in her case, he thought. He quickly turned his thoughts back toward the match with a grimace. There were some things he just didn't need to be contemplating, and his niece's love life was one of them.

He knew James would try to skin him if he ever found out that Remus had essentially sanctioned what Harry was up to, but Remus found he couldn't begrudge her this little slice of freedom. Who was he to say whom she ought to befriend, really? If she didn't want to spend her time in high society, well, she'd probably be better off for the things she experienced in this world. Many young ladies of her station would never consider involving themselves in a sphere that hadn't been tailor made for them. To be unsatisfied with the station life handed you—to carve out your own place in the world—was no bad thing, in his mind.

When Leo finally finished toying with his opponent and ended it, Harry jumped lightly down from the platform to meet her friend as he descended the stairs. Watching her, it occurred to Remus that Harry moved a bit like a fighter, too. When exactly had that happened? He found himself looking forward to seeing just what his niece was capable of.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

Things were going well, she thought. Remus and Leo seemed to be, if not getting along like old friends, at least amiably interacting. Not that she'd expected otherwise—everyone liked Uncle Remus. He simply never gave anyone a reason not to.

Leo won his match almost ridiculously easily. She wondered briefly if the bracket had been stacked in his favor, then swiftly dismissed the idea—he was just that good, rather. She tried to psych herself up by telling herself that, as his pupil, she must have picked up some of Leo's skill. It was hard to take that sort of argument seriously, though, especially once she'd laid eyes on her opponent.

He was huge. Not Hogwarts gamekeeper huge, of course, but certainly bigger than the average man at six-foot-four. His shoulders spanned an impressive breadth and the only thing keeping him from being completely intimidating was the sort of nervous energy he exhibited, bouncing in place on the balls of his feet and shifting and fidgeting in a show of incurable restlessness. When he caught her sizing him up, he grinned, lifting his chin in a friendly challenge. She merely raised an eyebrow and waved a bit halfheartedly.

"Is that your opponent?" Remus asked. There was an odd note in his voice that made her look up at him questioningly.

"Yes," she said. "I haven't been watching his matches, so I'm not sure what to expect. He has at least two knives on him that I can see, and the fact that he's got this far means he has some skill, at least. He's big, so maybe I can out-pace him."

Her uncle shook his head slowly. "I don't think you should assume he's slow, in this case."

She eyed him sharply. "You know something."

"I suspect he may be… like me," Remus admitted, eyeing the man carefully. "I can't tell for certain without getting closer, but my intuition is growling at him, if that makes sense."

"All right," she said, grimacing. "I'll assume he's both fast and annoyingly resilient, then." A quick calculation told her it was nowhere near a full moon. His human body would be at full strength, then. She supposed it would be a bit beyond the pale for her to procure a silver knife before the match and be done with it. There had to be some way for her to take advantage of this information, though. His senses would be acute, but there were ways of turning that into a weakness. She settled her goggles over her eyes with a grim smile. If she'd known beforehand that she would be fighting a werewolf, she would have brought a few of the Marauders' stink pellets and a flashbang or two. As it was, she'd have to work with what her wits could provide her.

Leo handed over the armband and gave her shoulder a quick pat for luck. Remus smiled encouragingly. She summoned her determination and smiled back. She ascended the stairs first, followed closely by her opponent. According to the brackets, his name was Ralph. Well, it actually said 'Rabid Ralph,' but she thought it was safe to assume he'd got creative with the first part.

They faced off under a thousand eyes, both breathing slowly and deeply to center themselves for the fight to come. "Don't think I'll go easy on you, little miss," her opponent said, dark eyes amused. "I caught your fight with that goblin yesterday—you'll have a harder time tricking _me_."

"That's good," she said, a smile playing on her lips as she dipped into a crouch. "I like a challenge."

He chuckled appreciatively and took up his stance as well, unsheathing a knife from his belt and drawing his wand with his left hand. She gritted her teeth. Of course he would be left-handed. This was going to throw off all of her knife stances. The only southpaw she'd practiced against was Old Solom, and he never took their bouts too seriously.

The gong rang out and she was leaping back from a horizontal slash before she'd taken her next breath. She dodged two follow-up strikes with quick, efficient movements. It was lucky Remus had warned her, or she would have been taken completely off-guard at the man's speed and agility. It shouldn't be possible for such a large man to maneuver his body so rapidly, but the proof was in front of her, pushing her to retreat. It was a matter of moments to decide that she did not want this to be a close-range fight.

He pursued her tenaciously, likely knowing the advantage was to him if he could keep close enough to press her physically. Annoyed, Harry tossed a low-powered Reducto at the ground between them, stopping him in his tracks as wood exploded and the floor fell out from under his feet. She darted backwards as far as she could while he circumvented the large hole in the stage. From a safe distance, she fired an Impedimenta and a Sticking Charm in quick succession. Her best bet was to slow him down first and then see about taking him out.

She expected him to shield against the first spell—it was why she'd cast the second, almost invisible spell in its wake, with just enough time between them to tempt him into releasing his shield after the first one connected. Instead, he ran right into it. A moment later, she saw why—it hadn't affected him at all, unless she counted the annoyed shudder he gave as he continued running toward her. The sticking charm gave him momentary pause, but he wrenched free of it ridiculously fast, shaking it off like a dog snapping a frayed leash.

Cursing, she twisted away from his lunge and used the turning motion to send herself into the tube of Apparition with a grunt of discomfort. She really hated resorting to the shudder-inducing new skill, but the discomfort was worth not getting disemboweled, she told herself firmly. She reappeared on the other side of the large stage and barely stopped to blink before firing off an Incarcerous across the field at her opponent. His eyes narrowed in on her position, and then he had Disapparated with a crack, avoiding the spell easily and reappearing to her left. She propelled a shield charm into existence between them and skipped away. The werewolf barreled right into the physical shield charm and apparently just shouldered his way through it, as though it were a very heavy door rather than the solid wall it was supposed to be. Clearly the basic shields were not going to cut it here.

She Disapparated again, appearing on the other side of the stage and reading her next spell in transit. When her opponent appeared before her a moment later, her wand had already begun to emit an extremely over-powered Lumos Charm. Something like a miniature sun burst into existence between them and the werewolf hissed in pain as he shut his eyes and stumbled backwards. Her goggles absorbed most of the light automatically, so Harry didn't pause a whit in darting forward and zeroing in on her target. She slammed the inside of the man's right wrist with the butt of her knife as hard as she could. It would have broken the wrist of a normal man, but the werewolf merely lost control of his grip momentarily. It was all she needed. She had summoned his knife before he could even blink the tears from his sensitive eyes to see where she was, and even though he lashed out with his empty fist in blind retaliation, he only clipped her shoulder as she leapt backwards out of reach.

She Disapparated to a safe distance and tossed the knife down the hole she'd created earlier in the stage. Hopefully if he didn't know what she'd done with it, he wouldn't be able to summon it back to himself—most people needed to know the general location of the thing they were summoning, at least for a Summoning Charm to work over any significant distance.

Her opponent was rubbing his sleeve against his streaming eyes in frustration on the other side of the arena. Part of her wanted to attack him from behind while he couldn't defend himself, but that felt a little cheap. It was bad enough she'd come dangerously close to blinding him with that spell. Still, that didn't mean she would waste the time she had now to prepare.

Quick as a snake, she crouched and etched with her wand the smallest possible runic circle she could into one of the floorboards. It was incredibly simple, consisting of runes requiring no more than a stroke or two each, and she had connected the cardinal points and imbued it with a sliver of magic before her opponent had fully recovered. She scuffed her boot in the built-up dust on the stage beside her runic configuration, hiding it from casual sight. Then she made careful note of its location and promptly charged the werewolf as he turned to glare at her from across the stage.

It was less than terrifying, as he was squinty-eyed and had tear tracks on both cheeks, so she smiled innocently in response before dropping abruptly into a leg sweep meant to send him stumbling backwards. Instead, he kicked his own foot sideways and stopped her leg in its tracks, jarring her hip muscles something awful. She rolled, relinquishing her position before he decided to step on her, and came up with an arching slash of her knife to keep him at a distance.

She thought he would be at a disadvantage in the fight without his knife. She was mistaken. He caught her left forearm as though it was a twig, squeezing hard enough to let her know he could have broken it if he'd wanted to before shoving her backwards with the force of an avalanche. She hit the ground hard and rolled away with a groan. _Message received_ , she thought wryly. She was certain the next time she tried to cut him he would break her arm.

Back on the defensive, she brandished her wand sharply and erected the strongest shield she felt comfortable using in a friendly match—it was no Depasco, but she wasn't willing to use a barrier that would dissolve the man's arm if he wasn't familiar enough with it to keep his distance. The Fortis shield was no pushover, though—it was the one she imbued in her Protection Potion, which meant that while many wizards would have difficulty maintaining the high-level shield for longer than a few moments, she was _incredibly_ practiced in casting it efficiently.

Ralph came to a stop on the other side of the shield, either recognizing it or being sensitive enough to magic that he could feel the power radiating from the visible barrier. "Bet you can't hammer your way through this one," she called out, a sly grin on her face.

He smiled back slowly. "Why do I feel that you would like me to try?" He shook his head, tilting it slightly to consider the shield with intense concentration. He tossed a couple of offensive spells lazily at the ward between them, tensing after the first time in case it was a reflection shield that tossed his spell back at him. The shield simply absorbed the spell, however, without even a ripple of interest. "Powerful," the werewolf acknowledged. He lashed out with a spinning kick without warning, but it simply bounced off the shield gently. He frowned, but slowly relaxed. "You cannot keep that up for long. It will tire you immensely. The longer you stay in there, the easier you will be to beat when you release it."

She pretended to think about that. Normally, he would be right. Anyone with average levels of magic would already be shaking with the effort of maintaining the shield against three powerful attacks. She was not most people, however, and she had a feeling that Ralph didn't know what the biggest advantage of this particular shield was. She lunged toward him without warning, as though she were going to break through the shield herself from the inside. Instead of her coming up against the barrier, however, the shield moved with her, crashing into the unsuspecting man with a _crunch_. He was knocked backwards into the dirt, cursing and growling and he rolled out of the way of her oncoming dash.

It was difficult to maneuver the shield around her, but unlike her Protection Potion, which tied the shield to the potion it was imbued within and therefore created an immovable barrier once the potion was poured, this Fortis shield was centered on her wand. As long as it moved, the ward would move. She couldn't move as quickly with it as she could without it, of course—it was a bit like dragging a large balloon around behind her; there was a noticeable lag, and a lot of forward force was lost in resistance, but that didn't matter when the shield itself was what amounted to an unstoppable force. It would run over anything in its way, simply because its magical properties absorbed all attempts to push back against it.

Ralph discovered this quickly the first time he attempted to stand his ground against her shield's assault. He crossed his arms in front of him and braced his feet, but it didn't matter. The shield's implacability combined with Harry running as fast as she could toward him meant that his strength was nullified, outclassed completely as he was thrown backwards once more.

She admitted to having more fun than she should, herding him about the arena from the safety of her little bubble. She wondered how absurd it looked from the audience's perspective. There was a purpose behind this, however, beyond driving her opponent mad as he retreated over and over before her crushing onslaught. She had the stage mapped very carefully in her mind, and by the time the werewolf was glaring at her as if he regretted not breaking her arm after all, he'd already been maneuvered to precisely where she needed him.

She pretended to sway slightly, as though she was running out of steam. In fact she felt as though she could do this all day, but that wouldn't get her any closer to _winning_. Ralph readied himself, poised to strike to moment her shield fell. She shook her head in dramatic denial, affecting a desperately determined expression and taking a single step forward. The werewolf took one step back, caution warring with impatience. She stumbled forward another step and he mirrored her again—stepped backwards directly onto the runic circle that had been lying in wait.

The trap configuration activated on contact, sparking beneath his foot and popping with a loud bang that let off a burst of smoke and fire. It was nothing dangerous—she had underpowered the fire-starting configuration, and instead of a bonfire springing to life around him it looked more as if he'd stepped on a firecracker. The loud noise it produced coupled with the sudden heat was more than enough to take him completely off guard, however.

He yelped and stamped his feet frantically, likely wondering why on earth the floor beneath him had just experienced spontaneous combustion. In that moment of distraction, Harry dropped her shield and sent an Incarcerous straight toward his chest. She put as much magic as she could without the structure of the spell falling apart. His instincts had him looking up in time to see the spell coming, but there was no time at all to avoid it. Ropes sprang up around him from all angles and converged, shrinking to force his arms into his side and his legs together.

He toppled backwards even as Harry sprang forwards with her wand outstretched. This was the moment. If she could just get the tip of her wand to his throat, the duel would be—

The werewolf shifted his weight as he fell, rolling somehow despite the ropes that should be constricting even the smallest movements. Before she could get close enough to end it, he seemed to shrink all of a sudden, pulling in his arms in a sharp movement that she recognized as the trick Leo had taught her for getting out of that exact situation. He'd managed to puff up his form enough to fool the ropes before they caught him, then.

She aborted her lunge and backpedaled quickly, barely getting out of range before he shrugged an arm out of the ropes and swiped his fist at her face. She felt the rush of air as her nose avoided a nasty break by a hairsbreadth. She steadied her footing, hoping to recover before he could counterattack, but the werewolf was fast. He had palmed a knife—the one she'd seen tucked into his sleeve back when she first assessed him, the second knife she'd been waiting for him to use since she relieved him of his first—and sliced through the ropes as if they were old and frayed already instead of new and magically reinforced.

The incredibly annoyed look on his face as he regained his feet—now singed around the edges—did not bode well for her. She Disapparated.

He followed. She Apparated three more times in a row before she was too dizzy and disoriented to continue. She caught him with a stunner as he appeared in front of her, but he shrugged it off and kept coming. She evaded a series of merciless slashes courtesy of his back-up blade and focused all her energy on keeping away from his strikes and planning her next move. She was running out of tricks to try, and as he barreled through a Tarantallegra she thought it was looking increasingly as though he would be able to shrug off whatever she threw at him. The only spells he even bothered wasting energy to dodge were area-effect spells that his superior physical resilience wouldn't protect him from.

Her eyes widened as something occurred to her. The reason he could afford to take spells directly was because he recognized which ones wouldn't hamper him unduly and _chose_ not to avoid them. To hit him with something that could actually take him down, she had to make him think it was something else.

She risked another string of Apparitions while she ran through her repertoire of spells as fast as she could. She needed a spell that could get around a werewolf's spell-immunity and then a spell that wouldn't, but which looked the same.

Her muscles were burning with fatigue and sweat dripped from what felt like everywhere on her body, but she managed to keep the pace up long enough to settle on two spells that ought to work. She shot a Trip Jinx at the werewolf's feet to make him hop backwards, giving her enough distance for her next play.

She had never tried something like this before, but there wasn't time to wonder if it could work. She opened her mouth and cried, "Flipendo!" The Knockback Jinx was not the spell she summoned her magic to cast, however. She separated her attention into two parts; one half of her focused on enunciating the Knockback Jinx oh-so-clearly. The other was weaving a Vertigo Jinx and releasing it with enough power to make even a werewolf lose his lunch. Both spells would emit a blue light when cast, and while the Vertigo Jinx typically travelled through the air with a distinctly twisting trajectory, it would take an extremely experienced dueler to pick out the physical discrepancy when his ears had already told him which spell his opponent had cast.

Ralph was a skilled and fierce combatant, but he relied heavily on his knives and fists in a duel. His wand work was supplementary at best, limited to a couple of high-powered offensive spells for emergencies. He took the spell coming for him entirely at face value and didn't give it another thought beyond bracing his muscles for the impact—until it struck his shoulder and, instead of pushing against his body, launched an assault on his _mind_.

He stumbled sideways with a slack expression on his face and lurched drunkenly in a clumsy attempt to catch himself before he fell. It probably felt as though the world had tilted sideways beneath him, however, as he barely managed to land on his knees without collapsing in the dust. His face betrayed the nauseating sensations the spell was inflicting on his perception.

Harry allowed herself a grin as she cautiously approached. A werewolf might be blessed with near-immunity to physical spells, but the curse had the opposite effect on their minds. Unless a werewolf worked tirelessly to bulk up his mental resilience through lengthy meditation sessions and the dedicated study of Occlumency and the other Mental Arts, he would always be more susceptible than the average wizard to magic that affected the mind.

Most people wouldn't know that, of course, but Harry had made a dedicated study of lycanthropy both through her investigation of the Wolfsbane Potion and through simply living with Remus her whole life. Ralph had made an unlucky draw for an opponent.

She caught up to the man quickly, despite the attempts he was making to stumble away from her. Having been under the Vertigo Jinx before, she knew it had the effect of making one's limbs seem to be in all the wrong places. It was difficult to coordinate any sort of movement, and harder still to summon the mental acuity to cancel the spell on your own. A quick Expelliarmus divested him of his wand and knife, and Harry closed in with her wand outstretched to level it between his eyes. Crossed and unfocused as they were, he seemed to recognize the situation he was in, for he froze.

For an instant, she thought she'd won. Before the match could be called, however, her opponent jerked his left hand up between them, palm flexed, as though to ward her off with his bare hand alone. She frowned and opened her mouth to demand his capitulation when a hissing noise erupted from the werewolf's sleeve and a cloud of noxious gas came spitting into her unsuspecting face.

She'd inhaled before she had even registered what happened. Coughing and gasping on the burning cloud, she stumbled backwards as quickly as she could and attempted to wheeze up as much of whatever she'd inhaled as possible. She narrowed her eyes at the werewolf, who was coughing a bit himself, though nowhere near as violently as she was. He was still fighting off the Vertigo Jinx, so she turned her wand on herself and cast a quick diagnostic charm on her lungs.

Definitely poison, she grimaced. It wasn't highly toxic, however. She monitored her vitals while her opponent struggled to his feet. It looked like the Vertigo Jinx was wearing off. Her diagnostics were telling her what she could have guessed. Her heart rate was fluctuating and her respiratory system was being forcibly suppressed. Her potassium levels were also elevated. The low-level of toxicity combined with the sluggish dizziness that accompanied a depressed central nervous system pointed to one thing: sleeping gas.

It was clever, she had to give him that. As a werewolf, he had a much greater ability to physically overcome the gas, so what would be a double-edged sword in anyone else's arsenal was a guaranteed advantage for him. She wasn't out of tricks just yet, however.

She directed her magic carefully to her lungs. Sleeping gas wasn't difficult for the body to metabolize naturally, as long as the dosage wasn't too high. Since she wasn't under a constant inundation of the gas, there was little risk of her actually falling unconscious. It would slow her down immensely, however, and all but eliminate her ability to keep fighting if she didn't speed up the process significantly.

The process at a chemical level was relatively simple. She only had to convert the sleeping gas into carbon dioxide and exhale it—it was the same thing her lungs would do on their own, given enough time. Granted, some of the poison had already been absorbed into her system, but metabolizing the rest of it would certainly help. Her magic got to work, and she divided her attention between it and her opponent, who had regained his equilibrium at last, it seemed.

He was walking slowly toward her, wheezing slightly. She could tell his breathing was already beginning to level out, however. She wondered at the speed of his recovery, even allowing for werewolf physiology, until he smiled a bit ruefully and said, "Sorry, kid. That wasn't meant for you, but you've pressed me harder than I expected." He took a deep breath and let it slowly out, coming to a stop above her. "Don't worry if you're feeling sleepy—it's not deadly. Just a little knockout gas. I've inoculated myself against this particular mixture, as you may have noticed. I remember how it feels, though. Really drains you, doesn't it?"

She favored him with an annoyed look. Who inoculated themselves against poison just so they could use it freely against others? "What are you, a professional assassin?" she grunted between coughs.

He looked surprised. "It's very impressive that you can still talk."

"I can do… more than talk," she huffed. Summoning her strength, she stood shakily, forcing her body into a ready position. She would be slower, that was inevitable, and she couldn't use her wand on him as long as she needed it to flush the toxins from her lungs, but she'd already disarmed him entirely, so they were even in that regard.

He regarded her uncertainly. "It would be best to forfeit at this point. The toxin is in your bloodstream by now; soon all aspects of your nervous system will be compromised."

Well, at least he was well informed about the poison he carried around. He was less well informed about her, however, if he really thought she would just forfeit. She brought her knife up in her left hand, the familiar reverse hammer grip making the blade a clear threat as she brought it across her body in the guard position. "You'll have to finish this the old fashioned way, I'm afraid," she told him.

"So be it."

He lunged. She twirled past one fist and turned aside the second with the flat of her blade. His foot kicked toward her knee but she slid her leg inside of his and knocked it off course with her hip. Her other leg came up toward his groin—a feint, not that he knew that—and forced him into leaping back.

He seemed bewildered that she was still on her feet at all, a frown marring his normally open features as they traded blows. Well, more like he took her hits with barely a wince while she avoided letting any of his blows connect at all costs. She wasn't able to defend herself well enough with one hand tied up healing herself, so it wasn't surprising that she took a series of glancing hits to her torso. Her legs were begging her to just sit down and give up, but it wasn't in her nature to stop just because it was becoming increasingly clear she fought a losing battle. If she could just hold out a few more minutes, until her lungs were clear, the outlook would be less bleak; with her wand back in play, she would have the advantage again.

She swept her knife toward his side, hoping to make him overbalance when he turned to block. Instead, he caught her arm in one hand and twisted her wrist until she dropped the knife with a grunt of pain. She abandoned healing her lungs in favor of getting her wand between them, but she wasn't fast enough. He used the arm he held as leverage and jerked her forward. His head came toward her, almost like he was going to buss her brow, but it was moving too fast and the angle was all wrong. A starburst of pain erupted in her forehead and the world cut out like the signal had gone—

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

She found herself lying on a golden sea, the sun warm on her skin and bright against her eyes as she blinked them open slowly. The sea moved beneath her lazily and she turned her head slightly to take in its roiling movements. It wasn't a sea, she realized dimly. It was sand. She pushed against it, struggling to sit. She was lying on the crest of a large sand dune. What on earth… ?

She struggled to her feet and squinted against the bright landscape, looking for some sign as to what exactly was going on. There in the distance was a shape, triangular, she thought, though it was hard to be sure with the mirage-like haze that blurred its edges to her sight. What… oh. She sighed. It was a pyramid. She was just in her mindscape. Thinking back to what she could remember, that must have been a hell of a head butt. She rubbed her forehead ruefully. No doubt that was going to hurt like the dickens when she woke up.

"Have you come to see my progress?"

She turned to see the Jewel-construct standing on the dune behind her, hands in its pockets and a tilt to its head that was eerily familiar. It was getting better at mimicking people, she noted. "I actually got knocked unconscious and ended up here by accident. Sorry," she added as the construct's face morphed into a petulant scowl.

"Go on, then," the boy construct said, scuffing his foot in the sand with an annoyed huff. "If you stay unconscious too long they'll send in the Mind Healers, and then you'll have quite a bit of explaining to do, I'd imagine."

"You mean it isn't normal to have voices in my head?" she asked, affecting an innocent tone that was belied by the ironic twist to her mouth. "Anyway," she said, dropping the tone as easily as she'd donned it, "I'll come check out the new additions, soon. Scout's honor."

"You are not a 'scout,'" the construct said, voice unimpressed.

"I promise, then," she said, waving him off distractedly. She focused carefully on willing her avatar toward the conscious realm.

"Why did someone knock you into oblivion, anyway?" it asked, unable to stifle its curiosity.

She spared it a glance as her consciousness began to drift back to reality. "I lost a fight."

Her vision faded to mist, and then she could hear her name being called over and over. "Harry." "Harry." It sounded like different people, she thought absently, still fighting her way back to the physical realm. "Harry, come on, you can't sleep all day. You'll miss my match." That was Leo. Trust him to twist her injury into some kind of passive aggressive attempt on her part to annoy him.

"Shudup, Leo," she slurred. The pain hit her sharply as she came back to herself and opened her eyes. "Ow," she commented. "Why is it always the face?"

Hands helped her sit up and she blinked blearily at Remus and Leo, then past them to where Rispah and Marek were hovering anxiously. She was in the Healers' tent, she reckoned, taking in the pallet she was lying on and the wrinkling her nose at the smell of especially harsh cleaning charms.

"All right, there, Harry?" Remus asked, giving her a look that was only mildly laced with concern. She supposed the Healers must have already told him she would be all right.

"Headache," she complained on a sigh. "Otherwise, I'm fine." She patted her pockets for her wand, though; it wouldn't hurt to run a quick diagnostic just to be sure.

"Here," Leo passed her the wand, along with her knife and her goggles, which she realized belatedly were not in fact on her face. Mrs. Hurst must have taken them off.

Speaking of, the woman ambled over from the back of the tent to bless Harry with a disapproving expression. "My child," she said, exasperation in every syllable. "When you inhale poison, the recommended course of action is to _seek immediate medical treatment_. Not continue a pointless fight of attrition until a blow to the head does what the toxic gas couldn't quite manage on its own."

Harry smiled sheepishly. "I did immediately give myself medical treatment, though," she said. "That has to count for something, right? I almost had all the gas out of my body when he caught me on the noggin. If I'd had just a few more minutes… ah, well. I'd only have lost to Leo in the next round anyway, I suppose."

"I'll wipe the floor with that man," Leo promised cheerfully.

"Please don't seek revenge on my behalf," she said seriously. "It was a good match. I don't begrudge him the win."

"You were quite spectacular, Harry," Remus said, pride in his gaze as he ran a hand over her hair gently. "Your strategies were ingenious, if a little unorthodox at times."

"You didn't like the bubble of doom?" Harry chuckled. "Tell me truly, did it look as funny as it felt?"

"More," Rispah piped up with a laugh. "It's a shame you lost in the end, as I've no doubt you converted a good number of spectators to your side with that particular maneuver."

"Oh, good," Harry said, sighing in facetious satisfaction. "I live to entertain."

"As long as you live," Leo said, frowning slightly. "You were pretty reckless a time or two, lass."

Harry shook her head slowly, so as not to upset her headache any more than necessary. "He wouldn't have really hurt me."

"Don't be naïve, Harry," Marek said.

"Really," she said earnestly. "He was competing on the same level I was—we were trying to win, but neither of us wanted to seriously injure the other."

"Is that why you underpowered the rune set?" Remus asked curiously. "I thought I recognized the array for a good sized fire, but all it did was spark a bit."

"Didn't want to burn down the stadium," she said, chuckling a bit. "Bad enough I blew a hole in the floorboards. Did they fix that?"

"We're currently in intermission until they get it patched up," Leo said. He didn't look upset with her, though. That was good.

"In that case, I need food," she decided, levering herself up off the pallet. "I'm cleared to go, right, Mrs. Hurst?"

The Healer warned her not to strain herself and to come back if she noticed any symptoms of a concussion, but in the end let her leave the tent. Rispah and Marek, assured of her continued health, left to attend to the festivities and prepare for their upcoming match, respectively.

Ralph-the-incredibly-hard-headed-werewolf was waiting outside the tent, anxiety all over his face. It morphed into a sort of awkward relief when he saw her emerge and he stepped over to look her up and down carefully, as though making sure he hadn't accidentally broken her.

"Good match," she said, offering a hand.

He took it gently, peering down at her with something like grateful confusion on his face. "It was. I admit I underestimated you."

"I get that a lot," she assured him. She couldn't be too upset about her loss when she was so exhausted and sore. She had no idea how the winning competitors were expected to fight another match that afternoon, and she could honestly say she was kind of glad she didn't have to try. "I'm Harry," she said as she released the large man's hand. "It's nice to officially meet you."

"Ralph," he said, smiling almost shyly. "I, uh, wanted to ask you—are you a werewolf?" It came out bluntly and a bit hurried, as though he were embarrassed to ask but still eager to know the answer.

She shook her head slowly. "What makes you think that?"

He shrugged, visibly disappointed. "You're pretty fast, for your age. And you threw off that poison like it was nothing—even I had a lot of trouble getting my body used to it. I just thought… well, never mind. Thanks anyway, Harry."

She eyed him for a moment, then sent Remus a sidelong look. He returned it with a resigned expression that she knew was as good as permission, so she said, "Remus is, though."

"Is what?" Ralph blinked, following her pointed finger to where her uncle was standing.

"Is a werewolf," she said, a slight smile in her voice. The big man's eyes lit up with something like disbelieving hope.

"Ah—really? That's great! I mean, it's not great, obviously," he faltered, shifting nervously as he babbled. "I'm new. I mean, as a werewolf. I was turned a year ago and I haven't met any others yet, or at least I don't think I have, but it's kind of hard to tell because my senses are a little confused still—"

"That will settle about two years after the initial bite," Remus said quietly, drawing the man a little way away to give them a semblance of privacy. "Eventually, you'll be able to tell other werewolves by their scent alone, and if you have good instincts, by sight alone… "

"So," Leo said, drawing her attention to his curious face. "Your uncle, huh?"

She flushed slightly. "It would have been impossible to mislead him after he saw the knife cut on my cheek. He's not going to tell my parents… I think."

Leo nodded slowly. "I think it's good. You should have someone in your immediate family who knows what you're up to. I keep things from my da for his own good, but my ma knows all about my life here. It's important to have people you can depend on when you need them."

"Remus said something similar," she murmured, watching her uncle speak soothingly to the werewolf beside him as though he were giving a lecture to a very large child.

"First Hermione, now Remus." Leo laughed at her somewhat sullen expression. "I feel like I'm meeting a whole new side of you this summer, Harry."

"From here it just feels like the world is collapsing around my ears," Harry sighed despondently. "I used to think I was so good at keeping secrets."

"You keep the ones that count," Leo said, a shrewd look in his eyes. "I don't doubt if you ever had something really worth concealing that it would never see the light of day. This," he gestured to the spectacle around them, "is not in itself a secret worth trying too hard to keep. Its existence, and your place in it, are well established in casual knowledge. You don't need me to tell you this, though. The fact that you told your uncle about all this without revealing my position here tells me you understand well enough the difference between secrets and knowledge that other people simply don't happen to have yet. I will tell you not to worry so much, though. It'll give you grey hair."

"I'll just wear this hat so you can't see it," she said, shrugging.

"Please don't," Leo said, looking pained. "I didn't want to say anything, but… that hat is horrible, Harry. That shade of brown doesn't go with your skin tone at all. Plus it's, you know, droopy on one side. It looks even more ridiculous with the flower."

"You're the one who picked out the flower," she reminded him.

"I didn't know you were going to pair it with that headpiece," he groaned. "Promise me you'll take it off after the tournament is over."

She hesitated. "You just want to be able to ruffle my hair when you tease me," she accused.

Leo shrugged. "My motivations have no bearing on the ugliness that is the limp brown sack currently nesting above your eyebrows."

Her eyebrows rose. "I see you feel very strongly about this, Leo."

"I do."

"I'll take it under consideration," she assured him dryly.

"I'll buy you a new hat," Leo said fervently. "A dashing cap in black or maybe white that you can wear anytime you're trying to look less like yourself."

"You spoil me, truly." She rolled her eyes.

Remus finished his conversation with Ralph, who waved again to Harry as he wandered off, and came back to them. "So. Apparition, Harry?"

She winced. Right. "Sorry?" she tried. His blank expression prompted her to try again. "I only use it for dueling?"

He sighed quietly. "Acceptable, I suppose. It did serve you in good stead today. Just please don't get arrested for Apparating without a license," he begged her.

She smiled in a way she was sure came off reassuring, no matter what her uncle's expression said to the contrary. "I promise not to get caught Apparating without a license."

Remus grumbled something about karmic retribution for teenaged hijinks, but didn't press further on the subject of illegal skills. She supposed he knew that the penalties for participating in a freedueling tournament were harsher than Apparating without a license, in any case, so harping on about that transgression in particular was rather missing the mark.

They went to find food, and afterwards she and Remus left Leo to prepare for his next bout while they found a seat in the stands to watch the rest of the matches. Harry grabbed a red flag (to support Leo), while Remus bought a blue one and they had a lot of fun staging a wild cheering competition over the participants they didn't know.

Marek won his match fairly handily. He was fast and ruthless as a fighter, always seeming to know exactly where his opponent's weak spots were. Harry had been dumped on her butt more times than she cared to admit while sparring with Marek.

Leo's match with Ralph was frankly a bit brutal. For all that the werewolf was enormous, he was clearly fatigued from their earlier fight, and Leo seemed to be having a little too much fun cutting him down to size. She had to shake her head ruefully as her friend executed a perfect running flip _over_ the werewolf and knocked the legs out from under him on the landing. The knife was poised over Ralph's throat from behind before he quite knew what had hit him. It seemed to Harry that Leo took a little longer than necessary to help his opponent to his feet, but she knew Leo was much more competitive than she was. It made sense that he would lose himself a little in the heat of the exchange.

She and Remus left as the sun began to set, bidding goodbye to a good number of people who hailed her on their way out—some of them Harry wasn't even sure she knew, but she had expected to obtain some level of notoriety if she made it far enough in the tournament. It was why she bothered with her disguise, after all. She returned every greeting regardless on her way back through the alleys. More friends could only help her, at this point.

As they neared the Leaky, she asked Remus what he thought of it all, after seeing it first hand. He thought about it for a long moment before saying, somewhat cautiously, "I think you're growing into a very interesting young woman, Harry."

She smiled softly. "Well, what did you expect? With such interesting influences, it was sort of preordained, don't you think?"

"I can't deny James deserves you, if that's what you're saying," Remus said dryly.

She paused for a moment, then grinned slyly. "Does this mean you guys are going to start teaching Archie and me how to become Animagi soon?"

Remus spluttered. "Not likely!"

She brought out a pout Rispah had taught her personally. "But Remus, weren't Dad and Sirius our age when they started learning?"

"They were incredibly irresponsible," Remus said, frowning. "If I'd known then what they were up to, I'd never have allowed it."

"I see," she said, feigning understanding. "So it's James and Sirius we need to ask."

"That's not—" her uncle broke off as he caught the amusement in her gaze. "Must you attempt to give me a heart attack, Harry? Have we not had enough surprises today?"

"I suppose I can wait a while before springing the next one on you," she said, a reasonableness to her tone that she knew would make Remus incredibly suspicious. "It's not as though you need to know about… hmm, yes, it would be better to wait."

"Stop it." His eye twitched helplessly. "You're a cruel kid, Harry."

"There, there." She patted his arm. "Would you like me to help you through the Floo?"

He grimaced. "And now the old man jokes. Remind me why you're my favorite, again?"

"Because I keep you on your toes?" she guessed.

"No," he said flatly. "I really don't think that was it."

She laughed and sent him through the Floo ahead of her. Whatever he pretended, she thought Remus had had a lot of fun in the lower alleys. The gleam in his eye as he watched the matches spoke of a man fully engaged in an activity near to his heart. Maybe she should get him tickets to an exhibition match on the formal dueling circuit for his next birthday. He certainly deserved a reward for being so understanding and supportive; he didn't even freak out when she managed to get herself knocked unconscious—heck, he'd befriended the man who'd done it afterwards.

As she whizzed through the Floo, she considered the day a success, despite the fact that she'd been bumped out of the tournament. The next two days of matches would be even more intense than what she'd witnessed for far, she knew, and that level of fighting was just not something she was comfortable with yet.

She whistled as she made her way through the house to her room to shower before dinner. The pressure of participating in the tournament had finally melted away, and now she could enjoy the rest of the summer in a more leisurely fashion. She would have more time for her potions research, which was coming along very nicely, if she did say so herself. She even had time to work out what to get Archie for his coming-home-birthday-present before the end of July.

She smiled as she wrung the dirt from her hair and watched the water around the drain turn a greyish brown. She just loved having free time.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

The matches on the third day were marathons. Both were exhausting to watch in their own way—she couldn't imagine what the participants themselves must be feeling. The crowd around her seemed to enjoy the protracted violence, but Harry found she personally couldn't keep her blood up for so long. It was fun at first, but after a while she just wanted it to end. Perhaps she wasn't a very good spectator, she decided as she congratulated Leo on his fifth win. She certainly hadn't got sick of it when she was the one fighting.

Marek lost his match, which meant the two Rogue favorites wouldn't be facing off in the finals as they'd hoped. The boisterous knife fighter left the stadium immediately after his loss, so she didn't have the chance to tell him that she'd thought he fought well, though privately she though he wasn't as focused as he ought to be. His opponent, a masked outsider who called himself 'Scar,' had simply taken advantage of his inattention.

The fourth and final day of the tournament started with a bang. As the festival was on its last legs, nothing was spared in making it a show to remember. The entertainment went on for what seemed like hours before the final match, and in the Duelers' Tent the bout was preceded by a round of raucous pre-gaming for the fighters and their friends. Leo and a number of the regular members of the Rogue drank and caroused in high spirits. Harry stepped into the jovial atmosphere with amused disbelief, immediately zeroing in on the merry king and eyeing his cup with open disapproval.

"What?" Leo asked, poking her in the forehead as she made to sit down. "What's with this frown? Aren't you looking forward to the match?"

"I'd like to see a decent fight, not just you keeling over drunk," she hissed. "How long have you been drinking?"

Leo laughed. "Harry, this is why you're my favorite. I suppose if it was up to you there'd be nothing but warm milk and bickies in this tent, eh?"

She narrowed her eyes at her ridiculous friend. Milk and bickies indeed. "Your opponent doesn't appear to be partaking. Do you think that's because he has a _lick of sense?_ "

They both glanced over to the corner of the pavilion, where the man with a cloth mask that covered his entire face sat alone, a cup of tea on the table in front of him the only sign that he was even staying hydrated, much less celebrating prematurely like _certain people_.

"I bet if he had any friends he would be," Leo said. His tone was perfectly reasonable but his eyes held too much mirth to be taken seriously.

She sighed and let her head drop to the table with a thump. "If you lose your crown because of this overconfidence I shall not be responsible for the state into which your kingdom plunges," she muttered.

Leo patted her head. "There, there. Don't fret for your king, dear maiden. You see, this is all… " he leaned in close, "a ruse." She opened one eye and waited for him to continue. "It's important that the king appear relaxed and confident before the big joust, yes? He must be seen nonchalantly making merry with his entourage. It's good for morale. Plus, it intimidates his enemies."

"So… you're not really drinking?" she clarified, sitting up. She felt a bit sheepish knowing it was all for show. She had to admit it was an effective ploy, however, if she'd bought it so readily.

"Oh, I am," Leo said, his grin wickedly teasing. At her affronted look he laughed again. "Kidding, Harry, honestly. Take a whiff."

She leaned in and sniffed. "That's rum."

"It does smell like that, doesn't it?" Leo hummed happily. "This stuff has no alcohol in it, though. It's all flavoring. Every time I dramatically call for more spirits, one of the kitchen lads from the Phoenix refills it from a special pitcher just for me." He took a large gulp and sighed ostentatiously in satisfaction. "Getting to drink piss-flavored toilet water while all your friends get steadily more drunk around you and then going on stage to get beaten up for half an hour in front of hundreds of people. It's great to be the king."

"Yes, yes, we all feel very sorry for you," she said absently, her eyes looking around the pavilion carefully. "Where's Marek? He fought this Scar fellow yesterday—he should be here giving you the inside scoop, shouldn't he?"

"Haven't seen him yet," Leo said, losing his fake blissful expression to be serious for a moment. "I'm afraid he might be taking yesterday's loss pretty hard."

She frowned. Marek was generally vocal in his disappointment, but he wasn't one to sulk. She stood. "I'm going to look for him." Leo gazed imploringly at her, but she only rolled her eyes. "I'll be back before your match."

She left the pavilion and began a methodical search of the grounds within the wards. Whatever Marek's mood, there was no way he'd miss the finale. He had to be around somewhere. She asked any mutual acquaintances she came across if they'd seen the man, but although a couple thought they'd seen him in passing, no one could say where he was now.

Eventually she found Aled overseeing the stage inspection—attempts at sabotage were apparently not uncommon—and asked if he'd seen Marek.

"Swift?" Aled nodded distractedly. "Said he was headed over to Knockturn. Had to follow up on a lead for… something. I don't think he mentioned exactly. He should be back soon, don't worry. The final fight is in ten minutes, and he wouldn't miss Leo's bout for anything."

She nodded, vaguely troubled. What business would Marek have all the way over in Knockturn Alley on a day like today? It must have been urgent to make him cut his timing so close. She made her way back to the competitor's tent, and felt more than a little exasperated when she saw the very man she'd been looking for at Leo's table, head bent close to his king in intense conversation.

She wanted to say something pithy about his irreverent timing, but the words died in her throat when she got a look at Marek's face. It was wan and tense, his bloodshot eyes underlined by dark circles that hinted at what sort of night he'd had. She couldn't believe he'd really taken the loss so badly. It was only a tournament, after all.

"—telling you, Leo, this is serious. He's not who he says he is. I've tracked his appearance as far as the Cesspool, but the trail vanishes after that. It's like he came out of nowhere." Marek was speaking with deadly earnest, but Leo didn't seem to be listening very closely.

"The Cesspool?" Leo wrinkled his nose. "Hate that place. Why'd you go there? Why would anyone go there? Should've burnt the whole district to the ground years ago."

Harry had vaguely heard reference to a series of dingy streets called collectively the Cesspool that branched off of Knockturn's many side alleys. It was by far the poorest and most violent of the areas considered part of the lower alleys. She had never had occasion to go there, only venturing as far as the tangential alley the Lamia Hotel called home.

"Leo, listen, you can't trust this man," Marek said urgently, reaching out a hand to forcibly catch Leo's wandering attention by snapping in his fingers before his face. "He won't fight fair. He's got some sort of… of power. He doesn't say any spells out loud, but he can make you see things that aren't there. Shadows, and twisting lights that blind and confuse and…Leo, be careful, are you listening?"

Leo blinked slowly at his friend. "Why are you being so serious, Marek? It's a party. Have a drink." 

"Damn it, Leo!" Marek slapped his hand on the table and upset Leo's drink, which spilled all over the floor.

"Look what you did," Leo sighed morosely.

"I think you've had enough to drink," Harry cut in, gently placing her hand under Leo's elbow and prying him out of the seat. He was really laying on the drunken king routine a little too thick. "Marek, help me get him to the stage; his match starts in a few minutes—look, Scar's already left."

Marek shot a look to the corner where Leo's opponent had so recently sat. He looked both frustrated and terribly worried. He helped her haul Leo out of the pavilion. "What is wrong with him?"

"I believe he's lulling his opponent into a false sense of security," she said wryly.

Marek frowned at his friend, who was stumbling and weaving between the two of them. "Leo, is that true?"

"Is what what?" Leo looked confused for a moment, then smiled. "You worry so much, Marek. It'll make you—make you—something."

Harry frowned as well, now. "Leo, that's enough. You need to start warming up."

"Mmm, warm me up, Harry," he slurred, throwing his arms around her shoulders abruptly.

She spluttered. "That's not funny, Leo. Come on, you've made your point. Everyone thinks you're relaxed and confident. Now you have to get serious."

"I am serious," Leo said, his face very close to hers. "I'm very serious about—about you."

She blinked at him, wide eyed. "Marek, I think there's something actually wrong with him."

"No shit!" Marek growled, taking Leo by the shoulders and shaking him. When that only served to make his head flop back and forth he proceeded to slap his king several times. "Snap out of it, Leo. What has he been drinking?" he demanded of Harry.

"Nothing but fake rum," she said, seriously troubled. The five-minute warning had already been given and the spectators were settling into the stands. "Wait here."

She raced back to the pavilion and searched the floor until she came to the cup Leo had been drinking out of. She brought it to her nose and sniffed. It wrinkled reflexively at the smell of stale rum, but… there was something else there, too. It hadn't been there before, she was sure of it. She dipped a pinky in the residue and brought it to her tongue—it was reckless and stupid, but she had no faster way of determining what Leo had been dosed with.

She grimaced as she recognized the taste of the foreign additive. Ephedra. Probably a very potent extract, if she was going by the extent to which Leo had been affected. She pocketed the cup as evidence and rushed next door to the Healers' tent. "Mrs. Hurst," she called urgently. "Mrs. Hurst, do you have a Sobering Potion?"

"Do we?" Mrs. Hurst huffed wryly. "With the amount of ale being sold at this event, of course we have—"

"Accio!" Harry snapped, catching the bottle deftly as it flew into her hand. "No time to explain now, thanks!"

She ran as fast as she could back to the stairs, where Marek was propping Leo up awkwardly. His masked opponent was ascending the stairs nonchalantly, so Harry slowed down and pasted a cheerful, utterly undistressed look in her face and made a show of wishing Leo luck until Scar was out of earshot. She uncorked the Sobering Potion and shoved it in Leo's mouth, pinching his nose closed until he swallowed unhappily.

"What's that for—ouch!" He clutched his head and gasped, blinking his eyes rapidly and wincing as they watered slightly. "What the bloody hell, Harry?"

"You've been drugged," she said quickly, snatching the competitor's armband as Aled came over with it and dragging it up Leo's bicep to disguise the real reason she was leaning close. "Someone put Ephedra extract in your drink after I left. It mimics a relaxed, drunk-like state, and the dose was unfortunately too high to completely cure with the Sobering Potion. You're going to feel a little off-balance until your system processes it completely, and unfortunately I do not have time to metabolize it for you with magic. You have to compete now, do you understand?"

"I—yes," he said, hissing out the word slightly. She knew he had a hell of a headache now but that couldn't be helped. It was better than sending him out to fight utterly trashed. "Who?"

"It doesn't matter now," she said, "Concentrate on the match. Marek, tell him now what you were trying to tell him earlier—quickly, before he's disqualified."

Marek nodded, looking grim. "Leo, Scar doesn't play on the level, got it? He uses illusions to trick your eyes into misjudging the position of his hands and feet. Don't look him in the eye—he can get in your head—and don't be fooled by anything that doesn't look real. He'll try to distract you with visions of things. Sometimes other people, sometimes creatures or just shadows. Keep telling yourself nothing is real unless you feel it. Keep him close—you'll only know where he really is if you keep hitting him."

Leo still looked pained and slightly confused, but his eyes were focusing hard. He set his mouth in a determined expression and nodded once to Marek. "Thank you."

"Leo, you must go," Aled said, gesturing to the stage.

Leo took a steadying breath and ascended the stairs. He was slightly unsteady, but Harry knew the effects of the ephedra would lesson as the match went on—the exercise would help burn it off faster.

She and Marek hurried to the viewing platform, both scowling openly with anger and concern as they watched the competitors face off in the center of the arena. The announcer dove into a dramatic introduction of the two competitors, throwing around flowery and amusing epithets for each fighter to hype the crowd further.

"Who would do something like this?" Harry asked in a low voice.

"Scar," Marek said shortly. "It's an alias, and not for some random outsider. He's from around here—I know it. He knows the alleys too well to be a stranger. He comes out of nowhere, somehow hears about the tournament despite supposedly being an outsider, wins a spot—nearly killing the organizer he fought to qualify, mind you—and then moves into the shadiest part of the alleys, changing locations every two weeks, always in places in or around the Cesspool, never giving any information beyond the name Scar. It's suspicious as hell, and he's too good a fighter for no one to have heard of him before. He's disguising himself so we don't recognize him."

Harry let out a shaky breath. "How did he get that into Leo's drink, though? I saw him; he was sitting in plain sight on the other side of the pavilion. There's no way he wouldn't have been noticed approaching Leo in front of all those members of the Rogue. Leo said his cup was filled separate from the others in the tent, anyway—by a boy from the Phoenix's kitchen staff, no less."

"The inn has taken on a lot of new people this week, to keep up with the increased traffic around the alleys and to help run the Phoenix's concession stall," Marek said darkly. "Any one of them could have been a plant."

"We'll figure it out after the match," she said.

"Yes," Marek agreed, a lethal promise in his voice. "We will."

They fell silent then, because the introductions were finally finished. The signal rang out and the match began, and there was nothing left to do but watch and wait. And pray.

It was clear from the start that this match would be different from all the others. Scar set the tone with a stabbing lunge that brought his knife plunging toward Leo's right eye. Even though Leo parried it, the crowd still booed and grumbled at the play. Going for the eyes in a spectacle match was a level beyond even kicking toward the groin. Scar was aiming to maim, at the least, and that meant Leo was in serious trouble.

Her friend radiated concentration, but Harry could tell it was the hyper-focused tension of someone compensating desperately and not the calm, collected determination it should be. He was impossibly fast, as usual, but he was rigid in places he ought to be loose, and it was obvious he was forcing what normally came naturally.

"He's all over the place," Marek muttered unhappily.

She looked closer, and realized he was right. Leo's strikes and counterstrikes were quick and strong but lacked precision. Every so often his limbs reacted in a way that didn't make any sense at all, and she could tell by the annoyed way he shook his head sharply when it happened that they were either moves he had not meant to make or he was reacting to something that wasn't entirely real, as Marek had warned him might happen.

Leo stumbled, but managed to recover lighting fast and turn the clumsy movement into a surprise weave and bob that landed him a solid slash to his opponent's wand arm. Scar's grip held firm, but she noticed the number of times Leo reacted incorrectly to Scar's movements decreased sharply. The little tiny wand twitches the masked man had been exhibiting must take a great deal of muscle control, then.

"At least he's unpredictable," she said weakly. Even mentally compromised, Leo was a formidable foe. It was hard to be confident in his ability to win, however, given his opponent's unconscionable ferocity. Every strike seemed to be aimed at disabling or killing Leo, and Harry's hands shook as she witnessed a dedicated attack for the first time. This was not a tournament match any longer. Scar was fighting to kill, and that changed everything.

It wasn't the flashy, impressive match the crowd had been expecting. It was ugly and brutal as the weapons clashed over and over. Scar was using his wand solely for something only Leo could perceive, and Leo seemed to have decided to disregard his own wand completely. He wielded the crystal knife like any other blade, not bothering to position it in a way that enabled casting, just slicing and blocking and stabbing as though that was the only thing left in the world he could understand.

The crowd was discontent at first as the audience realized the competitors weren't showing off like they ought to. The disgruntlement settled into something like disturbed fascination after a while, however. The whole stadium grew quiet and solemn as the two men on the stage hacked away at one another in the most primal and ancient of contests—survival.

Harry was terrified for Leo, not only because his opponent was so obviously trying to kill him, but also because the King of Thieves was visibly struggling to maintain his alertness. He seemed to be running on reflex and muscle memory, only occasionally showing signs of the brilliant and devious tactical mind she knew he possessed.

The two fought so closely that it was difficult for even those nearest to the wards to see exactly what was going on. At one point it looked as though Leo had deflected a stab at his stomach only to suddenly drop back a step, face contorted in pain as his other hand made an aborted movement to defend the area. He had lunged back toward Scar a moment later, though, his face a blank study in focus as he followed Marek's advice and kept his opponent as close as physically possible.

It didn't seem possible for a purely physical fight to last so long. Even in free dueling, there was normally time for each dueler to recover physically by switching over to a long-range magic-driven contest periodically. The spectacle in front of her was pure madness, though. Both men drove their bodies beyond advisable limits, muscles straining at every pass, postures communicating a stone-like detachment from the pain and punishment they were inflicting upon themselves and one another.

Finally, the tide turned. Scar brought his knife in a quick sweep toward Leo's right side. Instead of deflecting it, Leo turned his back toward the blow and absorbed it with a growl, using his two free knives in a deadly crossed formation to trap and decapitate Scar's wand ruthlessly before the man could free his knife to stop it from happening. They disengaged and Leo stumbled backwards, a darkly satisfied grin on his face. There was no doubt his back was bleeding, even though it was hard to see blood against his red tunic, but his opponent's wand was cut in two, utterly useless now.

Scar howled, tossing the wand pieces aside and charging Leo with reckless hate. Leo was visibly weakened by his injury, so perhaps Scar thought he still held the advantage, but it was obvious after the next few exchanges that the masked man could not keep up with Leo in terms of skill without his illusions and mind tricks. The fight was already decided, and Harry let out a slow breath of relief as Leo herded his opponent into position and then disarmed him deftly, finally ending the horrific show with both knives at Scar's jugular.

The crowd roared its approval, but Harry couldn't hear anything but the sound of her own breathing and heartbeat as she rushed toward the stairs. Scar stormed off the platform, and Aled had to physically hold Marek back from going after him. The armorer was saying something about needing proof first, but Harry wasn't listening to that, either.

Leo descended the stairs with slow, even steps. His body language was strong and relaxed, but the paleness in his face spoke of blood loss and nausea. She approached with her wand out, ready to do a diagnostic spell and figure out how bad his injuries were, but Leo waved her off with a sharp look. He walked past her, smiling stiffly and waving to those who called out to him or cheered. His mother waved him toward the Healers' tent sternly, but he grinned and shook his head.

"I'm going to the Phoenix to celebrate!" he called out, loud enough for everyone in the immediate vicinity to hear. "First round is on me!"

A cry went up, and word quickly spread that the after party would be at the Dancing Phoenix. Leo put on a good show of leisurely making his way through the crowd. The mass of people exiting the wards moved incredibly slowly, and after the third time someone slapped Leo on the back and he covered a wince, Harry stepped in.

For the sake of his ridiculous pride, she made a show of throwing her arms around him gleefully. "You won!" she yelled happily. "I knew you could do it."

He groaned quietly as she looped an arm around his waist, subtly pressing on his back wound as she leaned into him as though too pleased to let him go. In reality she was applying pressure to the gash in hopes that stemming the bleeding would allow her friend to get himself as far as the Phoenix under his own power.

"What are you doing?" he complained quietly, still smiling, though it was more like a grimace at this point.

"Keeping you alive until you sit your stubborn arse down," she hissed. She palmed her wand inside her billowing sleeve and hid its movements by turning her body towards his with a sappy expression on her face. She muttered numbing spells through her smiling lips and watched as the stress lines on his face relaxed slightly.

"Thanks," Leo said, grinning down at her.

"I haven't fixed anything yet," she warned him. "You can't feel the pain, but that doesn't mean you aren't doing damage to yourself with every step you take, so take it easy, ok?"

"Yes, Mother," Leo said.

She sniffed. "You'd better come up with something better to say to your actual mother when she realizes you went for a stroll with a shredded latissimus dorsi."

"She'll understand," Leo said. He was short of breath, but she knew anyone close enough to notice would assume he was still worn out from his fight, not bleeding out onto the pavement. "Image is very… important."

"Except when it gets confused with reality," she said drolly.

Leo grimaced. "Yes, it was rather bad of me act so inebriated that I actually allowed myself to be drugged into inebriation. In my defense, though, it's a wonder he even bothered—my acting is phenomenal, you know."

She ignored his nonsense, knowing that he was probably woozy with low blood pressure by now. "You're certain it was Scar who arranged to have you poisoned, then?"

He nodded tiredly. "Seemed much to annoyed and surprised when I could stand without falling over. Thanks for the save on that, by the way. I can't say I'd recommend the transition, but that potion saved my life, I think."

"We wouldn't have let you compete in the state you were in," Harry said. Did he think they would just shrug and send him off to embarrass himself? If the sobering potion hadn't worked, she would have knocked him unconscious with a sleeping spell and pretended to scream shrilly that he'd been poisoned until there was such a fuss raised they postponed the match. At least, that had been her backup plan at the time.

"No choice," Leo said, shaking his head. "There's a heavy penalty for those who don't show up to their matches."

"What?" she asked. "No one told me that."

Leo huffed a weak laugh. "I knew you'd show. It's to dissuade people from chickening out; the crowd paid good money to see a show, after all."

"What is the penalty?" she prompted when he trailed off.

"Let's just say it's as humiliating as getting your arse handed to you in front of hundreds of people would be and leave it at that," Leo muttered.

She sighed. Boys and their stupid rules. Not to mention their stupid pride, she added as Leo stumbled slightly and elected to pretend he was hugging her rather than leaning on her for support. She was practically the only thing propping him up by the time they made it to the inn. There was a table of honor by the empty fireplace with a plush chair at its head that was upholstered—thank the gods—in red. She steered Leo subtly toward it and let him sink bonelessly into the cushion while she pulled a chair close beside it and set about subtly casting diagnostic charms while his Highness smiled and accepted praise and ordered drinks for all those who wanted them.

Solom seemed to have anticipated a crowd, because tankards were already being passed from the kitchen. Soon the party was in full swing and Harry was hard at work patching up the worst of Leo's wounds, all while pretending to be relaxing in the seat beside him, curled up as though drowsy to better hide her wand movements. Leo made a good show of chatting amiably with everyone around them even as she wove skin and muscle and sinew back together.

Her half-lidded eyes hid the unfocused glaze they'd taken on as she focused her senses on what her magic was telling her. He had a fairly deep puncture wound in his belly that had thankfully not significantly perforated any of his intestines. The gash along his back was awful, jagged and deep. She could handle both given a little time, though, and the rest of his bruises and cuts were nowhere near life threatening, so she'd leave those for his mother to fuss over. It was difficult to heal through a person's clothes, but by no means impossible. It just meant you had to rely more heavily on the picture your magic mapped out in your head as it seeped into the patient.

By the time Leo had descended on his second helping of shepherd's pie with ravenous attention, she was finished. She uncurled herself from the chair and feigned a yawn, stretching one hand up lazily to distract from the way she tucked her wand away with the other.

"All better?" Leo asked mildly. To anyone watching, he could easily have been inquiring after her.

"No major malfunctions," she said, lips quirking.

He smiled widely. "You're good, Harry. I knew there was a reason I kept you around."

"Whatever will you do without me?" she drawled.

"If the heavens smile on me, I'll never have to figure that out," Leo said.

She laughed. "Unfortunately, I have greater ambitions than King's lackey."

"It wouldn't be like that," Leo protested, grabbing her wrist suddenly. He looked uncommonly serious.

She extracted her hand gently with a raised eyebrow. "It was a joke, Leo. I'll be your personal plaster provider as long as you want." She stood, rolling her neck to get rid of its soreness. "I'm going to see if Solom has any milk."

The common area was packed with people. The door to the street was wide open and she could hear a riot of celebration noises outside as well. It was hopeless to think of flagging down a kitchen boy in the mayhem, so she reckoned her best bet would be to duck into the kitchen herself and try to snag a glass without getting underfoot. As she wove through the crush, she kept her eyes peeled. A crowd of happy drunks was likely a great temptation for any cutpurses not aligned with the Rogue itself.

Because of her vigilance, she spotted Regulus Black before he saw her. In a smooth movement that didn't draw any odd glances, Harry slipped her goggles out of her pocket and donned them. She'd left her hat at home that day, since she no longer had to worry about being up on the tournament stage, but the eyewear should be enough to disguise her features as long as she was just one face in a sea of many.

She was almost to the kitchen door when a man in a black hooded cloak stepped in front of her, cutting off her path. She tilted her head and peered into the folds of his hood, but even her goggle-enhanced vision couldn't penetrate the shadows. There was some sort of spell involved, she supposed, which blurred and twisted the air around his face. Like the Unspeakables, only less… professional.

"Yes?" she said after it became clear he was waiting for her to speak first.

"We saw your match," the man said. His voice was deep and carried easily through the noise around them.

 _Oh good_ , she thought, _what I really need right now is a mysterious royal we._

"We noticed your talent," the hooded man went on. His voice held a mild tone that didn't sit with his whole surreptitious image. "It was a cheap ploy that werewolf employed."

She honestly didn't know what to make of this. A ploy that was employed? She had met so many sinisterly well-spoken bad guys that this one's plebian speech patterns were more disappointing than anything.

"It was a fair win," she offered, shrugging a bit. "I don't mind."

He was silent for a moment, as though her response had derailed some imagined track the conversational train was supposed to take. "My… patron is very interested in talent like yours," the hooded man said eventually. She was relieved he'd dropped the weird 'we' thing, but disturbed by what exactly his words were driving at. "There could be opportunity for someone of your skills. Gold, too. You could put your gifts to use for more than petty entertainment."

She held back a scoff and said, as politely as she could manage, "My skills? You mean fighting. That's not a skill anyone should be looking to use in real life."

"Sometimes fighting is necessary." The man sounded perplexed. She supposed he might be a little slow. "You learned this for a reason, didn't you?"

"For self defense," she said shortly. "If you're looking to hire a mercenary, you've got the wrong person."

"Your loss," the hooded man growled, turning to stalk away through the crowd.

"I'm sure," she muttered, annoyed. She'd have to tell Leo someone was trying to recruit tournament participators for transparently nefarious purposes. Her good mood had taken a sour turn. She knew the world had a lot of problems. There would always be people with unhappy natures looking to take advantage any way they could. The only thing for it was to avoid those miserable souls where possible and work against them where not.

For now, she would simply enjoy the company of her friends. One of the benefits of coming into contact with shitty human beings was that it made it so easy to appreciate the good ones.

-0—0-0

-0—0

-0

[end of chapter three].

A/N: Whew, this was a doozy. Sorry it took so long to get out, but I wanted to get all of the tournament in this one. Next time: the Quidditch World Cup! Thanks to everyone for reading this (admittedly a bit overwhelming) chapter! Boy, 47,000 words just flew by, eh?

I know my sister has hinted there may be a time in the near future when I'll have to take a three-month break from writing due to some personal circumstances. Nothing to worry about, I'll come back and finish the book! There just may be a longer wait than usual between chapters four and five (I predict). I fully encourage everyone who likes the story to take a stab at writing some fanfiction about the characters they like or something they want to see happen in the mean time. It'll fill the void for everyone if there are other stories to read about Rigel and her friends. For those of you who don't know, there are some really good ones already out there that you can find either through the forum or just via google search. Anyway, thanks to everyone for supporting the story this far!

All the best to everyone out there who is reeling from the Pulse massacre, as well. I hope everyone who has loved ones in the Orlando area found them safe and sound.

-Violet Matter


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: I'm back, and really really sorry for the long wait (and I know that isn't good enough but I have nothing to offer except this chapter).

 **A Futile Façade:**

 **Chapter 4:**

Late July brought with it a storm of letters, blown in from various corners of the world. A weathered envelope encased in sterilizing spells, a wrinkled roll of fire-proof parchment sprinkled liberally with stray splotches of ink, a pristinely embossed scroll on sumptuous official letterhead, and one endearingly impatient scrawl on embarrassingly expensive personal stationery. Their formats were diverse and their tidings varied, but all found her unerringly in the midst of her experimental research. Looking back over the days she spent cloistered in her lab, those letters seemed the only notes of disunity against a melody of simmering cauldrons and fevered dreams.

 _Harry,_

 _I'm so sorry, but it looks like I won't be back for our birthdays after all. I can't give you all the details. They don't want to cause an international panic, and you know how sensitive people can be about pandemics. Oh, I guess that wasn't too reassuring, was it? Don't worry; I'll be home before you know it. They think just a few more weeks until the quarantine will be lifted. I don't have much time to write, since they need all the hands they can get here, so I'll just say I miss you and I hope you're spending time with my dad. He sounds a bit lonely in his letters. Hermione, on the other hand, sounds extremely pleased with herself in the letters you've forwarded to me. Something about volunteering at a clinic for the underprivileged? Just what have you drawn her into, Harry?_

 _I'm glad to hear you made a good showing in the tournament. Please tell me Hermione doesn't know about your participation in the fights. I really don't have the wherewithal to learn freedueling in my free time._

 _Anyway, I really must dash._

 _Best,_

 _Archie_

She felt a slight pang at the thought of spending her birthday without Archie. They'd never had separate birthday parties, as far as she knew. It was good for Archie to have something of his own, though. She couldn't begrudge him his American adventure. Her reply was understanding and cheerfully encouraging. She promised to keep Sirius entertained and apologized for complicating his relationship with Hermione. She also mentally adjusted the timeline for finishing his birthday present—she'd have to factor in the time it took for international owl mail, apparently.

 _Miss Potter,_

 _I have made recent progress on developing the amplification base you requested. Rather than the single, all-encompassing augmentation that I set out to create, however, the results of my experimental process have delinearized our task somewhat. Instead of a general enhancement, I am now working to design a variable base. I realize the original intention was that the imbued magic itself would be the variable, but I now believe our purposes would be better served if at least one major ingredient in the base was matched with the intended effect of the magic imbued in it. It is in this way, via the pairing of key ingredient with magical intention, that the effects of the entire concoction will be magnified exponentially._

 _Thus, the recipe for my proposed variable base is enclosed. Where it calls for the 'signifying ingredient,' one may substitute what one likes. The recipe is built around the optimization of that ingredient, whatever it may be. I have thus far used basilisk scales to great effect in augmenting certain protection spells. Before you begin a well-meaning but misguided protest to the effect that potions reliant on basilisk scales are largely irrelevant to posterity due to the scarcity and dearness of said ingredient, consider what such a potion might be worth to those rich enough to both afford the brew and to be in possession of such valuables as would be worth spending a small mountain of gold to protect. The money to be made on a handful of such potions alone would go far toward funding more meaningful research down the road. But I digress._

 _Kindly reply with your thoughts on the variable base, including suggestions for further avenues of experimentation regarding key ingredients and their shaped imbuing pairings. As you've no doubt surmised, by developing a system of shaped imbuing rather than offering an open-ended concept, the idea becomes considerably more enticing as an area worthy of study in the potions community, particularly to that breed of mentally commercialized toddlers currently masquerading as the Guild's public relations team._

 _Regards,_

 _Master Severus Snape_

Snape's letter brought with it all sorts of new ideas. They picked at her brain, lulling her away from reality while she sat amidst her family at dinner and jerking her out of deepest sleep to shout insistently until she transcribed them into immortality with blind scribbles in the dark.

The idea of a plug-and-play method of a customizable imbuing base intrigued her. It was simple, yet brilliant: the sort of idea that marketed easily—like a doll with a hundred different accessories that you could mix and match. As long as you had the base, you could evolve it to your liking, to suit whatever purpose you had in mind that day. That is, if you knew how to shaped imbue. This system would be the key to making the concept attractive, she knew. Snape had certainly come through on what he set out to do for the burgeoning field. It made her all the more determined to make her own mark on it, as well.

 _Dear Miss Potter,_

 _Our warmest regards! This letter certifies the completion of your third-year coursework for the Sphinx Correspondence School of Magic. You have passed into the fourth year curriculum for the following subjects:_

 _Defense Against the Dark Forces_

 _Herbology_

 _Household Spells and Charms_

 _Transfiguration_

 _Potions_

 _The administrators were once again impressed with the thoughtful quality of your responses to the essay topics. In addition, your practical casting test was one of the few that received full marks. We would like to urge you to reconsider your decision to take only core courses. It is our belief that a mind as keen as yours, Miss Potter, would benefit greatly from the stimulation of more challenging elective courses. We offer a summer tutorial for those wishing to test into fourth year electives. Please consider carefully, as a good education is something that never stops paying dividends._

 _Sphinx Correspondence School of Magic thanks you for your continued dedication to the pursuit of knowledge._

 _Most faithfully,_

 _Headmaster Earnest Callaway_

 _Sphinx Correspondence School of Magic_

She was more than embarrassed at the correspondence school's frequent entreaties that she not let her intellect go to waste. She suspected part of it was simply that they wanted her to pay the extra tuition fees for elective courses, but she admitted they probably had few academics of her caliber in their scattered student body. It wasn't anything to brag about—she'd simply already learned everything they were 'teaching' her. In truth, she rarely even looked at the materials they sent her each month. Compared to the combined curriculum of Hogwarts and AIM, the expectations of the owl-correspondence school were something of a joke. She had to feel a bit guilty; she wasn't really self-taught, as the other students in the program were. She had a ridiculous advantage and it was no wonder it showed in her work.

She wouldn't be swayed by the idea of elective courses, however. She only wanted to pass the bare minimum of classes so that she could legally still carry a wand even if the whole ruse went to pieces. She'd be carrying the wand all the way to Azkaban, more likely than not, but the principle stood.

As for the quality of her practical work, well, it wasn't exactly a rigorous grading curve. The curious little orb she had to cast into for her practical exams either recognized the spell as the one called for next in the sequence or it didn't. There were no partial marks as far as Harry could tell. As long as the spell met some arbitrary threshold of 'recognizablility' it was considered correct. She supposed that would be a downside for inexperienced castors. A serious enough mistake and no credit was given at all, whereas in a real classroom setting the professor would be allowed to recognize the things a student did right while deciding their final grade.

And the potion they'd asked for? Please. They were clever to choose one that was non-transferrable after it cooled, so one couldn't simply buy the potion and pour it into the school's vial. Because of that restriction, however, the difficulty of the potion itself was closer to a second-year's level than a third-year's. At Harry's level, it was almost embarrassing to be brewing a Swelling Solution. She had much more important potions to be attending to, in any case. The letter was stuffed into a drawer somewhere in her lab, forgotten amidst the myriad scraps and spare bits of parchments whose discarded ideas died slow, dusty deaths in obscurity.

The last of July's letters came convolutedly. It went all the way to the Darian Gap and back before ever being opened. Archie opted to pass along all of Rigel's correspondence without reading it, correctly assuming that anything he needed to know she would convey to him in ways that made more sense than her blond friend's semi-coded chatter.

 _Rigel,_

 _When are you coming back to civilization? Mother says too much tropical weather can have ill effects on the constitution. Are you wearing sun protection? What are they feeding you there? Pansy keeps writing to ask me if you're eating enough. I told her to ask you herself, but she doesn't want to bother you or something. So pretend I asked with appropriate subtlety and please write to Pansy if you need her to send biscuits._

 _You will be back for the World Cup, won't you? Father has tickets in the Top Box. He said he heard from a colleague that your father has tickets as well—that means you'll be there, right? You better be. You already missed my birthday party, which I have magnanimously forgiven you for, and made me look quite a fool showing up to your father's birthday party only to realize that you were nowhere to be found. Did I tell you I tricked your cousin into doling out serious blackmail on you? Get it? Black-mail. I didn't even notice that until I wrote it down, but it's quite clever isn't it?_

 _I'm rambling again. Mother hates it when I deviate from my point in letters. She wishes to remind you that you must accept an invitation to tea the very moment you step foot inside the country. Don't forget or she will presume that I forgot to remind you._

 _Tell me when you're coming home!_

 _-Draco_

Her friend's letter would go into the drawer of her bedside table, under lock and key with all other such important and/or incriminating correspondence. She had to chuckle at his sheer cheek—tricked her indeed! She would have to make sure Archie wrote him as soon as he knew when he was coming back to England, though. Her pureblood friend sounded positively stir-crazy. She supposed two months was about as long as Draco preferred to go without seeing his friends. Some pang of foreboding filled her chest at that thought. There would eventually come a day when Draco never saw Rigel again. Was she prepared for the fallout that would come from that storm? Probably not, she admitted, but there was nothing for it now. She turned her attention back to her cauldron. Some things could still benefit from her present attention.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

Her birthday party was held at Potter Place, on the thirty-first of July, since their usual practice of straddling the dates between Archie's birthday and hers would be pointless without Archie there to celebrate with them. It was an unavoidably lively affair, and normally the overkill on festivities didn't bother her but, with her cousin's absence, the entirety of her family's exuberance landed squarely on her own shoulders.

"I don't think I can eat all this," she said, looking down with bemusement at the mountain of cake on her plate. It looked as if Sirius had cut her a slice and then decided it wasn't enough and dumped another piece on top of it, then stuck fourteen candles haphazardly on top.

"You won't know until you try," Sirius said cheerfully, looking pleased as anything with his pink oven-mitts propped on lean hips.

That was true she supposed, and yet… "Usually Archie takes my cake." She sighed.

"Ah-choo!" Addy piped up from her highchair. She had already turned her cake into a frosting smear.

"That's right, Addy," James said proudly, patting his toddler on the head gently.

"I think she sneezed," Remus said.

"Nonsense," James said. "She's a genius."

"Even if she is, there's nothing for you to be bragging about." Sirius guffawed. "Gets it from Lily, doesn't she?"

"She could get it from me," James protested.

"That's right," Remus said, mockingly serious. "Why, I heard James sneeze yesterday and it sounded just like—oi!"

"We can't be throwing food already," Lily moaned. "Harry hasn't even blown out her candles yet!"

It was true; the wax was beginning to drip, in fact. She couldn't think of a good wish, though.

"It's kind of funny how far your standards have fallen, Lils," James said, his grin a bit smug. "When we first married, you yelled every time we threw food at one another, and now you only want us to wait until it's not a fire hazard."

"Keep talking, Potter," Lily muttered darkly.

Deciding to eliminate the point of contest, Harry hurriedly sent off a request for new brewing gloves to the birthday gods and snuffed the candles with a sharp exhale. Addy clapped enthusiastically, garnering the attention of the adults.

"Presents!" Sirius declared, leaping into action to collect a handful of packages from the other room.

"She hasn't eaten the cake yet," Lily reminded him, following Sirius out of the kitchen in protest.

Harry slid half her cake onto Addy's highchair with a small smile. The little redheaded toddler seemed to be having more fun mashing the cake into a moldable medium than she predicted she'd have eating it.

"I'm not sure that's… ah, never mind," James said, watching Addy swipe her hand into the cake like a queen rejecting a suitor. The cake fell to the floor just as Lily came back in, somehow having been talked into carrying half the presents.

"Oh, _honestly_. You do know that parenting is not a spectator sport, Darling?" Lily said, stepping pointedly around the cake to set the colorful packages down in front of Harry. Sirius was a beat behind her, piling his on top in a precarious stack that invited her to start unwrapping before it toppled into her lap.

Harry smiled her thanks and began picking presents from around the edges. There was an assortment of sweets that pretty much came standard on any occasion with her family. Then came the personal gifts. From her mother, a pair of delicate hairclips—"for when you feel like growing your hair out." Sirius got her a book on animagi, to the tune of Remus' soft groan of despair. Her father's gift was surprisingly endearing: a set of potion bottles with custom labels. She peered at the label on one and had to smile widely when she took in the depiction of a little fawn peering unafraid at a growling mountain lion through a shimmering blue shield. The words 'Potter's Protection Potion' hung above the picture against a starry sky, and on the back was a short description of the potion's use.

"I'm drawing up ones for the cancelling potion, but they aren't finished yet," James said, a little unsurely.

She stood to give him a hug—not a brief perfunctory squeeze but a real embrace, complete with slow, deep breaths and awkward smile as she pulled away. "I love them. I'm going to use a Duplication Charm and bottle all my Protection Potions in them from now on."

"Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Magic," Lily said halfheartedly.

"By which I mean I'll be asking a responsible adult to duplicate them for me," Harry said smoothly.

"Good luck finding one around here." Sirius laughed.

"I think I qualify," Remus said, looking offended.

"You got her dueling gauntlets," Sirius countered. "That's the opposite of responsible."

"She hasn't opened that one yet," Lily said, dropping her head into her hands in exasperation. "I am so sorry, Harry."

"I honestly couldn't imagine a birthday any different," she said, laughing at her uncles' sheepish expressions.

"Forget unwrapping Remus' then," James said, reaching into his robe pocket. "We actually have another gift for you—this one's a joint gift, from Sirius and me." He pulled out what looked like a regular hand mirror—the kind a noble lady might use to peer at her reflection, in fact. Its rounded edges were adorned with silver roses and on the back a stylized 'P' dominated the engravings.

"It's lovely," she said. She had to wonder how her father had hit the mark so spectacularly on his first gift and fallen so far from the target on his second. What was she to do with a mirror, even a portable one?

James must have read her thoughts, for he laughed at her. "It's a communication mirror, Harry. One part of a two-way link. With it, you can talk to the other mirror any time, day or night, no matter the distance between them."

She reappraised the delicate item. "Who has the other one?" she asked, a grin playing on her face. If it was as she suspected, her life just became a great deal simpler.

"Archie, of course," Sirius said, bouncing slightly in his seat out of excitement. "I mailed it to him last week. We—your father and I—had a pair in school, and we mostly used it for making jokes when we had separate detentions. With you and Archie spending so much time apart, though, we thought… you ought to have your own pair. We know how close you two are, and sometimes letters just aren't enough."

He looked a little downhearted at the last, and Harry was abruptly touched that Sirius would think to make a mirror link to Archie for her, rather than keep it for himself. She knew how much he missed his son when he was away. Her less than stellar pen pal habits at Hogwarts didn't help close the distance any. "I'll cherish it," she said honestly. They couldn't possible know how useful such a thing was going to be. They'd have to switch mirrors, of course, as she didn't doubt Archie's would have a 'B' embossed on the back and be significantly less feminine to boot.

"Try it out," James encouraged.

Harry hesitated. If the mirror worked as she imagined, it would show Archie's face in its surface once her cousin answered. If her calculations were correct, his Modified Polyjuice would have completely faded by now. Their family seeing his true face now, just weeks before he returned home, would put a dent in their plans. He was supposed to ostensibly have unconsciously altered his appearance to match hers over the last couple of months, after all.

In the end, there was nothing for it. She'd have to trust that Archie could handle the surprise. She supposed he ought to be expecting her call in any case, if he'd received any explanation at all with his mirror.

She brought the glass close to her face and called tentatively into it. "Archie? It's Harry. Are you there?"

There was a long pause, but then a picture blurred into view. Her cousin grinned at her through the hand mirror, even waving a bit to show that the picture was live. She was too shocked by his appearance to return his friendly smile at first; she'd expected him to look different, but somehow she hadn't expected him to look older. Bright grey eyes peered out of an angular face that was unhesitatingly male. He'd cut his hair close to his scalp, probably in deference to the heat, and it brought the masculine promise of his features into stark relief. He winked at her and she silently despaired. _He's going to be as handsome as Sirius. There will be no living with him after that._

In the instant she spent reflecting on his features, they twisted and smoothed until it was as though she looked into a mirror—rather, an unspelled mirror. Amused, she said, "I don't think the mirrors work, Dad. It's just me in there."

"Oi!" Archie called through the glass. "Dad, she's saying I look like a girl again!"

The others all left their seats to crowd over Harry's shoulder. Sirius sighed gustily as he got a look at his son's morphed features. "Well, you look like a girl again."

Archie mimed dissolving into tears.

"He even cries like a girl," Harry commented.

"I thought I was tuning into my birthday party, not some kind of intervention," Archie grumbled.

"Archie," James said soberly, "we've all been very worried about you. This craving for the feminine mystique is taking you down a bad road."

"We don't even recognize you anymore," Remus added solemnly.

"As your friends," Lily said through a smile, "we feel that it's our responsibility to tell you that things have reached a certain point. From now on, we can't support your unhealthy obsession without feeling as though we're enabling your self-destruction."

"I think you mean self-reconstruction." Harry snorted.

"All right, all right," Sirius said, a pained grimace on his face. "You know he can't help it."

"Don't worry, Uncle Sirius," Harry said, a cruel smile on her lips. "One day, years from now, Archie will let go of his childish obsession with me and fall in love with some other young lady. Then he'll start to look like _her_."

They all had to laugh at that. Poor Archie bore up under it well, but then, she knew he would. It was why she'd made light of his appearance in the first place: to deflect attention from the awkwardness and strangeness of the phenomenon to the humor in it. She knew Archie understood. It was just impossible for them to have different appearances. They needed to be able to switch places at a moment's notice. Something could go wrong without warning. Any unexpected occurrence could give them away if they looked significantly different: a photo unknowingly taken and put in a school yearbook, an accident that required their parents to come to one of their schools shortly after term began, or even a family emergency that called them suddenly home.

Archie could change his appearance at will, of course, but Harry couldn't. Maybe it was a weakness in their current ruse, but it was the way things were unless they came up with something that was more flexible than the Modified Polyjuice without sacrificing the ease of maintenance that the long-term potion afforded them. At least with the potion, Rigel didn't have to worry about losing concentration due to injury or infirmary and letting her disguise dissipate unconsciously. She worried all too often if allowing Archie the flexibility of using his metamorphism was worth the added risk.

" _Anyway_ ," Archie said, clearing his throat loudly once they'd had their laugh. "What's been going on at home? Have I missed anything important?"

"You mean besides Sirius renting out your room to a troupe of circus performers?" Harry pretended to think about it.

"A whole troupe?" Archie clarified. He looked appropriately skeptical as to the logistics of such an idea.

"Well, technically it's a flea circus," Sirius put in, scratching his head idly.

Archie's expression shifted from confused to deadpan in an instant. "You're telling me my bedroom has fleas." When there was an awkward pause in which no one confirmed nor denied the statement, Archie sighed sharply into the glass, fogging it momentarily. "Put Addy on the mirror. The rest of you can go jump off a bridge."

Harry smiled winningly. "I missed you, Arch. Without you around, they make fun of _me_. Can you imagine?"

"Somehow, I'll find a way to visualize it." Archie huffed. "Really, though, what have I missed?"

"Addy can say your name now," Harry said, turning the mirror to face her little sister's highchair. "Say 'Archie,' Addy."

"Ah-choo," Addy gurgled obediently.

"Did she just sneeze?" Archie's nose was wrinkled when she turned him to face her again.

"The jury is still out," Harry said. "Enough about us, though. What have you been up to? Why aren't you home yet?"

Archie grimaced. "The sickness is more virulent than we thought. We're fixing it where we can, but it spreads faster than we can cure it. The Quarantine has been expanded across several villages now. We hope it'll be enough, but we'll be playing catch up for another couple of weeks at least."

Sirius poked his head into the frame to pout at his son. "But then you'll miss the Cup match, Arch!"

"Sorry, Dad," Archie said. It was obvious how genuinely dismayed he was to be missing the World Cup game. Sirius and James had scored the tickets months ago, planning to take Harry and Archie and camp out afterwards. "Uncle Remus can have my ticket, okay?"

Sirius swiveled his head to look at Remus with a small grin. "What do you say, Moony? Up for a re-creation of grad night?"

"Maybe Lily would rather go," Remus demurred. He was always one to let others have fun first.

"Hmm," Lily pretended to consider it. "Stay home and babysit a one-year-old or go out and babysit two of them? How's a girl to choose?" She laughed at James' put out expression. "Don't bother denying it, Dear."

"Wasn't going to, Doe." James shrugged, pulling his wife into an embrace. "I fully intend to have the time of my life, then come home and put that memory to shame in the loving arms of my wife."

Lily started to murmur something back but Archie coughed awkwardly through the mirror to break up the embarrassing scene. "So, anyway, I should be home just after mid-August, if my mentor's predictions are correct."

"We'll meet you at the international Floo point," Sirius promised. He gazed warmly at his son through the glass. "I'm very proud of you, Archie. It's a good thing you're doing."

"Thanks, Dad." Archie beamed.

"What are you doing today?" Sirius prompted after a moment. "Have you opened your gifts yet?"

"I didn't want to open them alone," Archie admitted, tilting the mirror so they could see a stack of small packages on the floor beside him. "Shall I?"

To a chorus of approval, he set his mirror at a distance that allowed a broader view of the room he was in. More of a tent than a room, actually, she corrected herself as her eyes took in the details. There was a small pallet pushed to one side and several bowls of water that she supposed were for washing in or drinking from. Pinned to the fabric of the wall directly behind Archie was a map with bright red pins splattered like freckles across the landscape it depicted. Several stacks of books littered the corners of the tent, making her think the only surface in his quarters was the little round table whose edge came into the bottom edge of the mirror's view.

"First one is from Harry! Ah, sorry I didn't get you anything, cuz," he said, laughing sheepishly.

"You've been busy," Harry said, shrugging. "Just don't die and we'll call it even."

"Deal!" Archie happily ripped away the paper to reveal a box of homemade chocolates. "Suspiciously wholesome," he commented, squinting at them. He found the tag and read it. "Fizzling Fourberies. Well, that's a perfectly innocent identifier. Am I meant to eat these or torture others with them?"

"What's a fourberie?" Sirius stage whispered to Remus.

"It's French." Remus sighed.

"Fancy," Sirius said, nodding with an impressed moue to his lips.

"You can eat one if you want," Harry said, smiling slyly.

"Did you make them yourself?" her cousin asked warily.

"Dad helped," she said, blinking innocently.

"Definitely not eating it, then." Archie laughed. "What's it do?"

"It fizzles," Harry said seriously.

"Like a fizzing whizbee?" Archie guessed.

"Well, they don't make you levitate," Harry hedged.

"But they _do_ fizzle," James added helpfully, having a hard time suppressing his grin. He'd had a grand time helping her test out the coating she'd cooked up to paint over the chocolates. It fizzled upon contact with saliva, filling the mouth with a crackling sensation not unlike a mild electric field. Unlike most sweets, whose effects faded after swallowing as the stomach acid broke down the physical components to the enchantments, however, the fizzling fourberies _kept_ fizzling. All the way through the stomach and into the intestines. James swore the one he ate was still fizzling when it hit the toilet on the other end, but she'd decided to simply take his word for that instead of investigating further.

The feeling was like someone tickling you from the inside out and, because it was potion based, not even a Finite aimed at a person's guts could still the eerier sensation of your belly vibrating as though you'd swallowed a wind-up toy. She thought it was just the sort of mildly gross prank Archie would have a good laugh over.

"I'll save those for a day I'm feeling slightly masochistic, then," Archie said, shaking his head with amusement.

"Just don't give them to anyone with ulcers," Harry recommended. Archie promised to keep that in mind and moved on to the next present. Harry handed the mirror off to the others so they could see him open their gifts and simply soaked in the atmosphere of having all of her family sort-of-together once more.

Addy squealed a little and muttered nonsensical things in protest of being ignored for so long, so Harry pushed some more of her cake onto the girl's tray. Addy blew a few spit bubbles in an eloquent show of gratitude and Harry smiled. There was something to be said for people who were easily pleased.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

James stared at her. She stared back. They were sitting across the kitchen table, eating a light Saturday lunch of corned beef sandwiches. She was chewing slowly, methodically almost. The calm patience she radiated contrasted sharply with the disturbed disbelief that furrowed her father's eyebrows. A mouthful of corned beef hung half-chewed between gaping jaws. After a long moment he collected himself. Swallowed. Cleared his throat. Said, "You want to… invite a Lestrange… to our house?"

She nodded slowly.

"To Potter Place?" James clarified, as though she might have declared some other residence her homestead in the last five minutes.

"For potions brewing," she confirmed.

"Is this going to be a thing, now?" James demanded. "You—just bringing older men over to 'brew potions' in your lab all the time?"

"I don't think twice ever qualifies as 'all the time,'" she said reasonably.

"How do you even know a Lestrange? How old is he?" James sounded increasingly strident.

"No older than Leo," she said, pretending to count on her fingers.

"That is _not reassuring_ , young lady," James hissed.

Harry had to laugh. Perhaps she was having too much fun with James' overprotective instincts. Was it petty? Yes, yes it was. But it was fun, too. "I interned with him at the Guild, remember? He's… " Well, she couldn't say _nice_. "Very interested in learning to shaped imbue."

"Why can't you ever bring that Hermione girl over to brew potions?" James complained, hanging his head forlornly. "She seems nice."

"You've never even met her," Harry said, rolling her eyes. "You only think she's nice because she's a girl. May I remind you that I'm a girl, too? Do you think I'm nice?"

James gave her an odd look. "Of course you're nice, Harry."

She sighed, thinking he'd quite missed the point. "Well, as long as you don't freak out when he comes through the Floo—"

"I thought you were asking my permission!" James exclaimed.

"Oh," she said, shifting awkwardly. "No. I was… just letting you know." A clear ping went off from the other room. She stood, brushing the crumbs from her mouth. "I expect that's him."

James spluttered. "He's coming over now?" She nodded, starting toward the Floo room. James followed, trailing protests and complaints. "He's a Lestrange, Harry, not some lost puppy you can bring home and house train—"

" _Dad_ ," she said sharply. They'd rounded the corner to see Caelum Lestrange brushing off his robes with a disgruntled scowl.

James pulled up awkwardly and looked torn between apologizing and saying something even worse. Lestrange waved him off, though. "Don't worry about it, Potter. My mother had the same reaction when I told her where I was going. Only she threw a vase at me," he added, plucking a piece of porcelain out of his hair idly. "Missed."

The fight went out of James almost at once. "Let your mother know if we'll need an extra place for dinner," he mumbled, retreating to the kitchen with only one last, sour look in Lestrange's direction.

Harry led Caelum to the basement stairs, saying over her shoulder, "Believe it or not, it's not personal. My dad hates all boys regardless of surname."

Lestrange sniffed. "As if I would lower myself to court the halfblood daughter of a—"

"Yes, yes, consider me insulted," Harry said, stalking into the lab and plopping down on a stool. She edged a spare stool toward her guest with a nudge of her foot. A small smile crept over her face as she said, in a cheesy salesman's voice, "So you want to learn to shaped imbue."

"You're going to make this as difficult as possible for me, aren't you?" Lestrange sneered, wiping the stool's seat with his handkerchief before deigning to sit.

"It's difficult enough on its own," Harry reassured him sweetly. Since Lestrange had first insisted on the lesson, she had thought a lot about how she should approach this. In the end, she decided to start with wandless magic in general and build from there. She pulled the copy of _A Treatise on the Wielding of Wandless Power_ that she had sort of pilfered from the Come And Go Room at Hogwarts and passed it to her would-be pupil. "This is the book about wandless magic that made the most sense to me. You can read it at your leisure, but the main point the author gets at is the density required for successful wandless casting."

Lestrange fingered the worn cover fastidiously, his nose wrinkled slightly. "How old is this thing? Where did you find it, Borgin and Burke's?"

"You wouldn't find a gem like this in that bin of trash." Harry snorted. "Anyway, haven't you heard don't judge a book by its cover?"

"Only people who sell tatty books would say such a thing," he said. After a moment, his eyes narrowed. "And how would you know what sort of books they sell in Borgin and Burke's?"

"It's twenty feet into Knockturn Alley," Harry said dismissively. "Not exactly off the beaten path."

The older boy narrowed his eyes but let it go. "Returning to the point. You really couldn't find any modern books on the subject? How do I know this information is even good?"

She lowered her lids at him in annoyance. "Were you listening? I said this is the best book I've come across. I've read quite a few, and most go on about the importance of willpower without explaining what exactly the magic is doing differently when you cast without a wand."

Lestrange grimaced thoughtfully, deigning to open the cover at last and flip through the short table of contents. His eyes raced restlessly down the pages. After a snort, he commented, "This language is entirely antiquated. It's like reading a commentary on _Mordred's Book_ that was written contemporary to its original circulation."

Harry thought that was a convoluted way of admitting he found the text impenetrable. "Don't worry; I can summarize it for you."

He shot her a dirty look. "Half of this is about learning to wandlessly channel magic. I already know how to do that—any halfwit with a decent Potions instructor can consciously imbue. Don't know how you managed it, considering that backwater hovel of a school you attend in the wilds of the Americas, but still."

She rolled her eyes. "You've never left the country, have you, Caelum?"

"I attended school in _Durmstrang_ ," he reminded her, scowling fiercely at the idea that she hadn't been paying attention to his backstory. "I just got back from an internship in Chile with Master Whitaker. Not to mention my family's businesses operate internationally and I've been paraded at grand openings and fundraising events for as long as I can remember. I bet I've been more places than you could ever _dream_ of going."

That she couldn't actually argue with. "How funny that you should be the close-minded one, then. Isn't travel supposed to make a person more tolerant and empathetic toward the unfamiliar?"

"Only if the traveler is a moon-struck ninny like you." Lestrange sneered. "I bet you get all aflutter with romantic feelings when you read about foreign cultures and famous sites of interest in your dusty books. In the real world, strangers are not generous folksy locals just waiting to guide you through the most gilded parts of exotic new worlds. If they aren't cheating you or stealing from you, they're insulting you behind your back."

She affected a deeply sympathetic look of pity. "Oh, Lestrange, were you terribly disillusioned when you met your first stranger? Was it ever so shocking when the other kids at Durmstrang didn't fall down at your feet and beg for your attention?"

"Shut. Up." He growled at her and flipped pointedly to a chapter halfway through the book. She noticed the tips of his ears had turned slightly red and had to wonder just how close to the mark she'd got on that last barb. The pureblood had probably been spoon-fed lies about his own consequence from the moment he was weaned. "What is this nonsense about the spatial density of magic, anyway? I've never heard of any such thing." His voice came out caustically, but she could read the underlying embarrassment his criticism was meant to cover up.

"That's the information most texts leave out," she said, leaning forward on her stool with an eager smile. "See, wandless magic is an entirely different method of utilizing magic without the wand acting as a channel. It's as if your wand is a garden hose and the water is magic. Without the hose, it just pours out of the faucet, powerful but directionless. Wandless magic means your magic has to act as both the water and the hose if you want to get anything done. That means a lot more magic is required to perform a spell without a wand."

"Not to mention more control," Caelum mused, losing his perpetually pinched expression at last. "I have to compress the magic until it holds the shape a wand's movements would normally provide. How do you make magic more dense, though?" Harry was about to suggest that it was a matter of making your own will the mold and simply filling it when Lestrange let out a short chuckle. "Of course, I see now. The water faucet—you just turn it to full blast, right?"

She blinked. Was that right? "I don't think—"

He held out his hand toward the ground in front of him and braced it with the other at his wrist. Ignoring her concerned noise of disagreement, Caelum growled out, "Fortis."

The shield burst into being before his hand and then kept expanding, bigger and brighter until, with a bang, it exploded outward, meeting the basement floor with a thunderous crack. Only Harry's own hastily conjured shield saved their faces from the backlash of debris as the uncontrolled shield put a sizable dent in the stone beneath their stools.

"Remember that thing about control," Harry said dryly, dropping her shield with a flick of her fingers. She had to admit she was impressed at the sheer power Lestrange had been able to conjure, however. She suspected he was more versed in wandless magic than he'd been letting on.

Caelum eyed her hands with poorly veiled interest. "Control. Sure. So were those reflexes something you picked up along with shaped imbuing or were you deeply traumatized at some point?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Harry lifted her nose, brushing a bit of dust from her robes nonchalantly. "Maybe try a Bubble-making Charm the next time you think you've discovered the secret to wandless magic within five minutes of cracking the book open."

Lestrange shrugged his shoulders disagreeably. "I have you here to protect us though, don't I?"

"Perhaps I'll stick to defending our vital organs next time and leave your pretty face to its fate," Harry suggested.

"So much petty jealously," Lestrange said, tisking his tongue with false disapproval. "You could have a face like mine, too, if you stopped wasting your gold on potions ingredients and put it toward procedures that would actually do you good." He began eyeing her critically, dark amusement shadowing his otherwise nonchalant expression. "I know a witch with a gift for permanent transfigurations who could slim down your shoulders and take some of the sharpness out of your jaw line. Probably even fix those eyebrows for free as a public service."

"Is that who you used, Lestrange?" she asked, feigning interest. After a beat of thoughtful silence she added, "I'm surprised you'd recommend her services, considering…" She gave him a dismissive once over that had him bristling. Really, it was too easy to turn his barbs back on him of late. It was almost like he wasn't trying.

"I'm being serious, Potter," Lestrange growled. He actually looked offended. "She'd give you a discount if you mentioned I referred you."

She had to blink at that. He was seriously trying to convince her to undergo transfigurative surgery to make herself more attractive? She wondered what he'd say if he knew she'd attained her current looks from a form of semi-permanent transfiguration in the first place. Fighting a smile, she shook her head slowly. "Thanks, but I'll wait a few years before I resort to such drastic measures. Who knows? Maybe I'll grow into my looks."

Lestrange sighed. "It'll be too late by then, you ninny. At your age, prospective matches have already begun looking, and given the legislative wheels currently in motion you should be very concerned with the heads you turn—or those you don't, rather. You don't want to be left with no options when the marriage law gets pushed through, do you?"

That was…almost kind, coming from Lestrange. Still, his concern was wildly misguided, in this instance. "I'll take it under advisement," she said diplomatically. Quite ready for the conversation to shift back to ground on which she could get her footing, she cleared her throat. "Try wandless casting again, only this time hold the spell inside you as long as possible before letting the magic manifest."

"As usual, you make no bloody sense, Potter," Lestrange muttered, twisting his neck elegantly in a show of gearing himself up once more.

"Learning how to cast wandlessly is part of the process," Harry said patiently, "But it isn't the final goal. You want to start working backwards as soon as possible so you don't get so comfortable with wandless magic that you can no longer conceptualize what you're doing—that will make it harder to reverse-engineer. Shaped imbuing is about shaping the magic _without_ releasing it. It's going to go against most of your instincts at first, so it will take time to overcome that."

"How long did it take you to learn?" Lestrange demanded. 

She coughed a bit awkwardly. "Oh. Actually, I did it by accident. I didn't realize it was odd until Master Thompson told me it literally wasn't possible."

The older boy stared at her for a long moment, then let out a short huff. "Every time I decide you might be a fire-starting genius you say something like that and I realize you're just a village idiot who found a box of matches."

"There are many paths to greatness," she said solemnly. "Sometimes you battle your way to the top of the castle, through dragons and dementors and the lot, and other times you step on a loose tile and find a secret passageway that leads exactly where you want to go."

"And sometimes you fall through a trap door and die," Lestrange said, frowning. "Do you have any idea what you're teaching me, or am I going to blow myself up before I figure this out?"

"No way of knowing until we try," she said honestly. "On the bright side, no one that I know of has blown themselves up learning shaped imbuing."

"Only one other person has ever tried, and that was _Master Snape_ ," Lestrange said.

"And he's doing just fine," Harry said soothingly. "Got a letter from him just last week saying he was having the time of his life shaped imbuing."

"Oh you didn't either," Lestrange grumbled. Nevertheless, he held up his hands and began gathering magic to them with a look of fierce concentration on his face. She could sense the power coiling under his skin. His hands trembled slightly as he struggled to keep control of the magic without releasing it. On a bite of frustration the power slipped away from him, manifesting in a torrent of bubbles at first, but quickly dissolving into pure power output that sent air rushing through the lab in uncontrolled bursts.

"Good," she said. "Now do it again, only better."

"Professor of the year, you are," Lestrange grunted. Nevertheless, he did try again. Then several more times until she could see the strain of magic expenditure on his pale features.

"That's enough for today," she said, standing from her stool and twisting her back to stretch out the kinks. "You've got the gist of the idea, I think. Just practice until you can shape magic without releasing it, and then send me an owl and we can work on shaped imbuing."

"At that point it's just a matter of directing the magic without releasing it, right?" Lestrange clarified. "I'm sure I can figure it out."

"Suit yourself," Harry said, shrugging. "Keep the book, though, and let me know if you have any questions."

"I'll let you know when I've improved upon the process," the pureblood said, the haughty tilt back to his chin.

"I'll await the news with bated breath," she assured him. She escorted him to the Floo, pretending not to notice James casually eavesdropping on their stilted farewells.

She sincerely hoped the boy didn't manage to blow himself up, not only because it would look bad for the burgeoning field of shaped imbuing, but also because he had turned out to be a surprisingly entertaining acquaintance. It would be a shame to lose all the civilizing work she'd put into his personality at this stage in their friendship.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

After so many days up to her elbows in cauldrons, lulled by the staid, predictable patterns of recipes and routine, it was almost surreal to touch down in the middle of unbridled chaos, but that's what the Quidditch World Cup amounted to. The landing point for their Portkey was overrun moments after they cleared the circle by a gaggle of witches from Romania all sporting Bulgarian-themed face paint.

"See?" Sirius gestured with both hands to the witches as they passed. " _They_ dressed up."

James, wrapped in an Irish-green sweater and matching scarf, sighed gustily. "For the last time, I _am_ sorry I forgot the body paint, Sirius, but you have to admit it's freezing out."

"Are you a wizard or _not_?" Sirius demanded, planting his hands on bare hips indignantly. Harry thought he looked a little ridiculous with half his torso painted glow-worm green and the other half exposed to the evening air, but judging by the sidelong glances a couple of the Romanian witches flashed her uncle as they passed, team spirit was not the sole motivation behind his eye-catching look.

James grimaced. "The skin dyeing spell doesn't last as long. I'd just be bare-arsed in the breeze when it wore off."

"I don't believe Sirius was asking you to paint your arse, Dear," Lily said mildly.

"Though if you're offering, I think it could score us a pair of omnioculars," Sirius put in helpfully, eyeing a blonde witch at a nearby souvenir stand whose speculative glances in their direction were enough to make Lily straighten slowly.

Her mother placed a possessive arm around James' waist and pulled him pointedly in the direction of a rival stand. Harry thought she was the only one close enough to hear the redheaded woman mutter "mine" under her breath as she passed.

Harry gave Sirius a reproachful look as the two of them trailed her parents. "That witch was looking at you, not Dad."

"Was she?" Sirius didn't seem terribly concerned with this fact. He was newly distracted by a headset that advertised a live audio feed to the players' boxes. "Well this seems a bit easy to take advantage of."

"I hope you're not planning on gambling, Sirius." Lily made a face in the small mirror affixed to the hat rack and discarded the emerald top hat she had tried on with a shrug. James tucked a green flower behind her ear instead and they smiled at one another in a way that seemed to briefly shut the rest of the world out.

"Used to hate it when they did that," Sirius commented to Harry in an undertone.

"And now?" she asked, feigning detached interest.

"I guess it's cute," Sirius said, wrinkling his nose a bit. "In small doses."

"Who knew you were such a hopeless romantic?" Harry affected a deadpan expression that set her uncle to chuckling.

"If I'm a hopeless romantic, then you're a cynic, my dear niece," Sirius informed her.

"Realists are always called cynics by optimists," Harry said, not at all insulted by his words.

Sirius fingered a talking button absently. "Sounds like something a cynic would say."

Harry smirked sideways at him. "You would know, Uncle."

Her godfather had to grimace at that. "Aren't you supposed to have a rose-colored image of your role models?"

"At my age?" Harry pretended to think about it. "I think I'm supposed to be recently disillusioned and largely mistrusting, actually. Maybe I should pout."

If there were a facial equivalent of backpedaling, Sirius would have perfected it just then. " _Please_. Don't."

It was Harry's turn to chuckle. "Then don't complain about my pragmatic outlook. Only think how much worse it could be."

"We really lucked out with you and Archie, didn't we?" Sirius reflected.

Harry had to fake the smile that passed between them at that. Had they? He might think differently, if he only knew all the trouble she and Archie had been courting. It was the sort of trouble that could follow a family for generations. The sort that stained everyone it touched. They tried, she and Archie, to shield their family from the mess they'd made, but some of the waste was frankly radioactive at this point. There was no telling how far the consequences would reach if things went bottoms up at this stage.

They shopped at the various overpriced stands until Sirius tried to get into a fire-breathing contest with one of the jugglers, at which point James casually mentioned having had firewhiskey delivered to their campsite.

"Well why didn't you say so?" Sirius exclaimed, throwing an arm around James' shoulder and snagging Lily's waist with the other. "Come along Harry. It's time you learned how to get properly sloshed."

"That isn't funny, Sirius, she's fourteen—"

"And we were thirteen when we brought that case of butterbeer up to our dorm room and proceeded to toss our wits off the Astronomy tower," Sirius reminded James.

"I recall vomiting spectacularly off that tower if that's what you mean," James said drolly.

"That's what I said." Sirius grinned. "And now it's time to pass that legacy down to—"

"Corrupt your own kid," Lily said sternly. "Harry will have no part of that, will you, Harry?"

"I _am_ a bit thirsty," Harry said, blinking innocently over at them. She waited until James' eyes had grown wide with dismay before adding. "Do you have milk at the tent, Dad?"

His eyes grew moist as his tense shoulders sagged in relief. "I will find you milk if it is the last thing I do, Harry."

He set off happily in the direction of the nearest refreshment tent and Harry turned to Sirius with a smile. "And that's how you stay Daddy's little girl," she said, saccharine smugness in every syllable.

"You—you—" Sirius whistled.

Lily just laughed and patted Harry's cheek fondly. "That's my girl. Let's collect your father and get him to the tent before he works himself into any more states, shall we?"

Sirius sighed as he trailed after them. "James used to be so _fun_."

"Don't pretend you aren't having fun riling him," Lily said.

"It's not the same," Sirius complained.

"It's exactly the same." Lily laughed. "Maybe you're the one who isn't fun anymore."

Sirius could not have looked more affronted if Lily had doused him in cold water. Harry couldn't help but suggest, "That sounded like a challenge, Uncle Sirius."

Before Lily could utter a word of repentance, Sirius was crowing. "I am the funnest of them all! You'll rue the day you questioned the merrymaking capabilities of one Sirius Black!" He grabbed for his wand and shot dozens of green sparks into the air one after another, like an American cowboy shooting his weapon boisterously into the sky. "Don't wait for me!" he cried, striding toward the blonde-haired stall keeper without further explanation.

"Well done, Harry," Lily said, grimacing. "We've done it now. We'll be following his path of destruction all evening."

Harry shook her head on a laugh. "We won't either. He's a grown man, Mum. Let him have his fun. Now you and Dad can go do couple things and I can have some peace and quiet in the tent."

"That doesn't sound very fun for you," Lily said, doubtful.

Harry reached into her pocket and pulled out a slim tome on South American poisons that Archie had sent her. "I brought my own entertainment. Anyway, I'm really here for the match. You guys have fun with the revelry makers and don't worry about me. We can all meet up when the stands start filling."

Lily thought it over. "You have a map to our camp site?"

She produced it with a flourish. "X marks the spot."

Her mother nodded. "All right, then. You're more than old enough to look after yourself. Just keep a watchful eye on your purse, Harry, and don't do anything that… Remus wouldn't do."

Harry grinned. "Had to think for a moment to come up with a good example, didn't you, Mum? That's sad."

"Oh, go on then." Lily waved her away with an exasperated huff. She spotted James coming their way with a cup of milk in his hand and smoothly intercepted him, taking the cup and sipping from it with a playful smile of thanks.

Harry waved cheerfully and set off into the crowds, weaving through throngs of Wizarding folk all dressed in wildly impractical amalgamations of clothing. The inundation of red and green everywhere gave the effect of a Christmas party gone terribly wrong. The sense of gaiety was not the right tenor for a holiday party, either; there was a wild edge to the crowd that she recognized from the dueling tournament in the Lower Alleys. The energy was intoxicating—or would be, if she didn't consider herself slightly apart from it. She was not the sort to surrender her consciousness to an atmosphere, no matter how enjoyable. She preferred the role of observer. It was no less enjoyable, and she valued the control it afforded.

Past the concession stands were rows and rows of tents—though the term 'row' might be a rather forgiving description of the way they were arranged. There _were_ pathways between and around the hundreds of canvas dwellings, but they twisted and turned sharply about themselves, giving the impression that no sort of organization existed at all. The haphazard manner in which the occupying wizards comported themselves and their belongings further complicated the path she took on her way to their designated tent. She stepped over blankets and chairs, skipped around the occasional stray toddler, and several times ducked hastily to avoid a poorly aimed firework.

"Harry! Harriett Potter, over here!"

Speaking of poorly aimed fireworks. She turned her head to see Fred and George Weasley waving excitedly at her from the next row over. She picked her way toward them with a polite expression of curiosity on her face. "Well met, you two. How long have you been here?"

"Nearly all day," Fred said, leaning down from his not inconsiderable height to speak to her. "Our family caught one of the first Portkeys in this morning. You?"

"Just arrived," she said, gesturing vaguely behind her. "My parents are wandering about the stalls, and Uncle Sirius is causing trouble somewhere. I was just going to relax in our tent for a while before—"

"I'm going to stop you right there," George said, holding up a hand. She blinked patiently at him as he cleared his throat and continued, in a grander tone. "Young maiden, we, Messrs. Weasley and, incidentally enough, Weasley, will be your escorts for the evening."

She turned her nose up primly. "And what qualifies you two scoundrels to escort a hoity toity lass like meself?"

"Apart from our dashing good looks and natural charm?" George pretended to consider it. "Can't think of a thing. Fred?"

"We know Rigel," Fred said brightly. He paired the sentiment with a broad smile.

"You forget I know very well what sort of people Rigel hangs about with," Harry said. She looked them over in their wildly patterned Irish pride gear and made an unconvinced face. Lowering her voice, she added, "You haven't got fleas, have you?"

George scratched absently at his ear. "Why? You got something against blood-sucking parasites?"

"Doesn't everyone?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Actually vampires are quite in vogue at the moment," Fred told her gravely. "There's even a new vampire bar in Hogsmeade that serves the diurnally challenged."

She wrinkled her nose. She was almost afraid to ask, but… "What's it called?"

"Fangtastic Fancies," Fred drawled.

"Oh it can't be." She made an ill face.

"Don't listen to him." George shoved his brother away with disgust. "It's a restaurant, not a bar, and it's called Bloody Good Bites."

She snorted. "That's even worse. Where do you two come up with this stuff?"

"It's a gift," George sighed.

"We aren't proud of it," Fred agreed.

"Except when they are," a new voice cut in. The three of them turned as Ginny Weasley, decked gamely in green trousers and a white jacket, joined their group. "Evening, Harry. These two weren't bothering you, were they?"

"What will you do if they were?" she wondered.

George clapped a hand over her mouth as Fred gasped dramatically. Both turned fearful eyes on their little sister, who began cracking her knuckles ominously.

"Please don't—"

"Not again—"

"We promise—"

"—to be good!"

They fell to their knees with loud sobbing noises as Ginny picked her fingernails idly. People began turning to see what all the fuss was about and several onlookers stopped walking and stared uncertainly at the twins before Ginny shooed them away with an eye roll. "Honestly, you two, must there always be a scene?"

Fred popped lightly to his feet and George stood with an oh-so-casual stretch. "Yes," Fred said plainly.

"It's in our contract," George clarified.

"Consider yourselves terminated," Ginny said. She turned flat eyes toward Harry. "What were you doing before these airheads waylaid you?"

"I was going to read a book in my tent," Harry said, shrugging at the grimaces of pity the twins shot her.

"Lovely," Ginny said. She linked her arm through one of Harry's and tugged her in a random direction. "Let's do that. Tell Dad I'm with the Potters," she added to her brothers.

"But—" George frowned after her.

"You aren't..." Fred trailed off with a defeated sigh as Ginny pointedly pulled Harry around the corner of a large tent.

The redheaded girl dropped Harry's elbow once they were out of sight and smiled somewhat sharply at her. "Sorry to use you so shamelessly when we aren't very good friends yet."

Harry smiled back and shook her head. "No apology necessary—we females must look out for one another."

Ginny frowned. "I don't need looking out for."

"But your family feels differently," Harry guessed. "Are you really going to come with me or did you just say that to get away?"

"Are you really going to go read a book or did you just say that to get away?" Ginny shot back, tilting her chin in a challenge.

Harry felt her eyes narrow of their own accord and a smile played across her lips. She sometimes forgot why she liked Ginny, but other times the redhead brought a thrill to her stomach that made her think Ginny was the sort of girl she wished she could be—maybe even the sort she would have been, if her deceptive lifestyle didn't warrant caution and placidity at every turn.

Even though it absolutely had been her intention to find her tent and read the book in her pocket, she found herself saying boldly, "I'm sure we can find _something_ more interesting to do around here."

"Well, maybe," Ginny said, shrugging. "It's only the Quidditch World Cup."

They eyed one another with twin expressions of forced boredom until Harry cracked a grin and they both dissolved into hearty laughter. "Let me leave a note at my family's tent so they know where I've gone," Harry said after regaining her breath. "Then we can find something to catch our interest."

"Or some _one_ ," Ginny suggested.

Harry looked askance at the Gryffindor. "Aren't you a little young to be on the prowl?"

"You're never too young to practice," Ginny said, blinking big brown eyes innocently.

Harry considered the girl critically. "I can still see your smile when you do that," she said, gesturing with a finger to the corner of Ginny's mouth. "Try thinking of something that confuses you when you make those eyes—it'll add a dimension of genuine naiveté to the expression that might detract from the enjoyment you partake in making it."

Ginny gaped at her. Then her face morphed into a positively predatory look of glee. "Show me."

Harry allowed her features to fall into an expression of dismayed apology. With wide, regretful eyes she demurred. "Oh, I couldn't possibly pull it off. I was just—" She flapped her hands unsurely. "—just suggesting, that's all."

Ginny stared harder at her. After a moment, Harry dropped her pretense with a lazy grin and Ginny started to chuckle softly. "I thought you were a stone-cold princess when I met you, Miss Potter, but I am quickly reevaluating that opinion. _Where_ did you learn to do _that?_ "

"As a child I was left alone a lot. I used to stare at myself in the mirror for hours," she confessed, her eyes going distant and sad. "I made hundreds of faces at myself, willing the girl in the mirror to change, to become someone interesting or likable. A person worth being."

Ginny shifted a bit uncomfortably. "R-really?" She cleared her throat awkwardly, visibly gearing herself up to say something reassuring.

"No." Harry sighed, dropping the character like a heavy coat. "Not really. I just lie a lot."

Ginny huffed exasperatedly and shoved Harry's shoulder to show her displeasure. "I'm not falling for that again."

"Two sickles says you will," Harry said archly, setting off along the path once more.

"You're on!" Ginny fell into step hastily. "And you will teach me how to do that."

"I'll consider it, though I'm not sure you need any more weapons in your arsenal," she told the younger girl. "Your brothers already stumble over themselves to please you."

"That took years of work, though," Ginny complained, unabashed. "You spun me up in five minutes."

"I worked many years to be able to," Harry cautioned her. "It does actually take of lot of practice—the thing about making faces at myself in a mirror was closer to truth than is unembarrassing to admit."

"I told you already I don't mind a little _practice_ ," Ginny assured her. There was a lioness behind the grin she gave next, and Harry sincerely pitied any person on the receiving end of Ginny's manipulations. She suspected the girl would excel at emotional artifice, given half a chance.

They found her family's plot fairly quickly. It was positively modest in comparison to some of the opulent tents around them, but the Marauders logo on the entry flap was unmistakable. The Black family name had bought them a spot in the shadow of the gargantuan stadium, sandwiched between such illustrious patrons as the Macmillans and the Raifsnyders. She saw the Malfoy pavilion dominating the skyline further down the row, its crest a glittering totem of wealth and circumstance. She wondered briefly if she would see Draco that evening, then realized that she certainly would, considering they'd both be in the Top Box once the match started.

After the note was left for her parents, she and Ginny set off to explore the event grounds. Harry was certain she'd never seen so many witches and wizards in once place. It was more crowded than Diagon and Hogsmeade put together, and the diversity of nationalities and even species was not something seen in the average Wizarding community. Ginny charmed a pair of ice creams from an adolescent stall keeper and Harry tried not to feel guilty as she enjoyed hers. She would have bought them both, if she weren't familiar with the stubborn reality of Weasley pride.

They stumbled across an acrobatic show and paused to watch a pair of young jugglers exchanging knives at increasingly reckless speeds. At the final trick, in which the smaller of the two leapt between the knives her partner juggled the crowd burst into applause and the two young artists turned to face them, bowing deeply. When they straightened, Harry's eyes caught a pair she recognized with a jolt of surprise. The small performer was Cora, and she looked to be completely recovered from her bought with Seifer's Sickness.

Cora winked a bright green eye at Harry, who smiled back warmly. Ginny had caught the exchange, but there was no help for that when Cora wove her way toward them at the show's conclusion and said, "Miss Harry! Leo didn't say you'd be here."

"He didn't say you'd be here, either," Harry said, tilting her head at the girl consideringly. "Did you run away to join the circus?"

Cora laughed heartily. "You can't make money at a circus, Harry, everyone knows that. This is my troupe! We're the best juggling act in London, and Leo managed to get us passes to perform here at the Cup. Didn't know I was a professional, did ya?"

"I don't know how I missed it," Harry said. "You're quite talented. Are you taking donations, then?"

"Not from _you_ ," Cora said, rolling her eyes at Harry. "You only saved my life. Healer Hurst told me so."

"What about from me, then?" Ginny asked, holding out a Knut with a small smile of her own.

"Depends," Cora said slowly. "Who're you?"

"This is my friend, Ginny," Harry said. "Ginny, this is Cora."

Cora stuck her hand, still in its fingerless padded gloves, out toward Ginny smartly. As they shook, the blonde-haired girl said brightly, "You look like Curse-breakin' Will."

Ginny glanced at Harry with a questioning face, but Harry just shrugged with a vacant smile. She wasn't about to spill the beans on Bill—they had an arrangement of sorts. "Well, you look a bit like my classmate, Luna," Ginny offered.

Cora smiled widely and dropped her hand, subtly pocketing the Knut Ginny had passed her with a nod of thanks. "I'd better go—the next show starts in a few. See ya around, Miss Harry!"

They waved as the girl trotted back to her troop, then meandered on their way toward the souvenir stands.

"Cora looks like a gutter rat," Ginny said in her usual blunt way of conversing.

"She looked pretty presentable today, actually," Harry said.

Ginny shot her a look. "You know what I mean. She lives off the coin she makes juggling, doesn't she?"

"Among other things," Harry admitted. "Why?"

"How did you meet her? And who's Leo? Is he her pimp or something?" Ginny's tone was placid but her eyes were sharp with curiosity.

Harry winkled her nose. "Goodness, no. Leo is just a mutual friend. I met her in Diagon Alley by chance."

"And you saved her life during this chance encounter?" Ginny pressed.

"Nothing so dramatic," she assured the girl. "Saving people is rather Rigel's thing, don't you think?"

Ginny seemed willing to turn the conversation in that direction. "His record does work against him in that respect. Was he always like that—I mean, you grew up together, right? Did he save you all the time?"

Harry couldn't help but laugh at that. "No, not really. Rigel was entirely unassuming until he went to Hogwarts. He liked to read and play Quidditch and do the same things other children do. Hogwarts has been a poor influence on him I daresay."

"He claims to be unassuming still," Ginny said, shaking her head bemusedly. "He walks around like all the ridiculous things that happen around him aren't his fault."

"Well, they aren't _really_ —"

"Don't defend him," Ginny said sternly. "Rigel's oblivious attitude is what gets him into half those dramatic situations, you know. If he admitted he was special people would stop bothering him about it."

"I'm not sure that's what would happen," Harry said, grimacing. "Rigel isn't oblivious, but he's wary of the sort of people who would _start_ bothering him if it came out he was as unusual as people seem to think." It was painful to be so honest about herself, but if she could appease people like Ginny as Harry it would make her time as Rigel that much easier. "It's better if people believe he's just very unlucky, don't you see?"

"So you admit he is special?" Ginny said, a sly grin on her face.

Harry blinked. Had that been the entire purpose of Ginny's remarks? She had to smile appreciatively. It was rare that she lost control of a conversation these days. "I admit nothing," Harry said, "but I understand that reality is subservient to perception in a case like this. Regardless of what Rigel is or isn't, it's still important that people think him to be innocuous."

Ginny sighed, lacing her fingers behind her back restlessly as they walked. "I comprehend his intentions, but I must regretfully inform you of the plan's incontestable failure. The game is up! Everyone knows Rigel is different. Now the only question is how deep do the differences go?"

Harry made an exasperated noise. "That, right there, is the problem. You phrased it all dramatic and mysterious and anyone overhearing that is going to be inevitably intrigued. If everyone would stop drawing attention to my cousin he could live his solitary academic life in peace."

"Oh yes," Ginny drawled, a smirk tugging at her lips. "I'm certain it was the gossips' fault that Rigel saved everyone from the sleeping sickness. And they probably pushed him into saving that old wizard at the Cow Party Gala last winter—oh yes, I heard about that—and that time he almost singlehandedly stopped the spiders from infiltrating the Great Hall was definitely because—"

"Okay, I get it," Harry groaned. "Stop please."

Ginny, satisfied that her point was driven home, linked their arms once more and towed Harry toward a pennant stall to look for a miniature Bulgarian flag. "We can talk about something else. What do you do for fun, anyway?"

"I brew potions," Harry said, fingering a green streamer idly. The wrapper said it was twenty feet and would never tangle.

"Even I know that," Ginny said. "What else?"

Harry thought. "I read books—"

"About potions?" Ginny guessed. "You need some serious social stimulation, my friend."

"Doesn't this count, then?" Harry wanted to know.

"No. I forced my company on you, remember?" Ginny batted her lashes at her sarcastically. "You have to seek it out for it to count."

"Who is making up these rules?" Harry muttered.

"We can start now," Ginny said suddenly, grabbing her arm and pulling her around the stand abruptly. "See those two German boys? They think we're pretty. Let's strike up a conversation."

"About how pretty we are?" Harry frowned. A swift assessment told her that one of the young men in question did think Ginny was pretty and was currently attempting to convince his bored-looking friend to accompany him in trying to talk to her. She also noticed that the boy looked about sixteen and swiftly reversed the grip Ginny had on her arm. Now Harry was towing her friend away from the two Germans with a steady stride.

"What gives?" her redheaded friend protested.

"He's too old for you," Harry said firmly. Before Ginny could get offended, she added, "Anyway did you see his teeth? Yellowed and cracked. Three Galleons says he's addicted to Hagsweed."

" _Ewww._ " Ginny shuddered. "Good call, Harry. A girl's got to have standards."

"In her playthings?" Harry finished dryly.

"Well, exactly." Ginny began turning her head this way and that as they walked. "Who should be our next victim—hey, look, it's Cedric Diggory! He lives just over the hill from us in Ottery St. Catchpole. He used to cry when Charlie and Bill beat him at Quidditch, but he's certainly grown up the last few years, hasn't he?"

Harry followed Ginny's gaze to where a good-looking wizard with golden-brown hair that would make Lockhart envious was standing. He looked familiar. "Is he a seventh-year?" she asked. She felt like she'd met him at some point, but couldn't put her finger on where. Had his been one of the many minds she walked back in first year?

"Sixth year," Ginny said, edging the two of them slowly toward the unsuspecting wizard. "Hufflepuff. Quite talented, if you believe his Head of House. If you believe his father, he's the second coming of Merlin."

Harry cast amused eyes on a shorter, older wizard standing beside the sixth year in question. She had an idea of who he was. "Amos Diggory," she said, glancing at Ginny to confirm it. "He works for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, right?"

She had seen his name on several key initiatives for the reclassification of fresh-water Selkies from 'semi-sentient' to 'near-intelligent.' The change was sending the exotic hair market into a tizzy, as the hunting of 'near-intelligent' creatures required a license and was limited to certain population-based quotas in most regions. Many believed that 'near-intelligent' creatures should not be hunted at all, seeing that the category included mermen, centaurs, and other civilized beings, but on the other hand it included Acromantulas, dementors, and lethifolds as well, and no one seemed worked up about protecting those species from extermination.

"Yes," Ginny said absently. "He and Dad have lunch together pretty regularly. No idea what his wife does, but she's not around the house much. Isn't he cute?"

"Amos?" Harry asked, just to see Ginny scowl at her. Harry turned a considering look on the younger Diggory to appease her friend and shrugged. "I suppose his face is rather symmetrical."

"Don't be a bore," Ginny complained. "Gush with me."

"No, thank you," Harry said politely. Gushing was not on her list of things she would do to humor friends.

"Oh, all right," Ginny said. "At least come meet him, then." Before Harry could voice her disinclination to do that, either, Ginny was waving and calling out, "Cedric! Over here!"

The bronze-haired boy turned and caught sight of Ginny's broadly waving arm. He raised a hand in friendly acknowledgement and excused himself from his father's company to jog over and say hello. "We meet again, Ginny. Where are your brothers, then?" He seemed well aware that her family was not wont to send her off on her own.

"Who cares?" Ginny said, tugging Harry closer in a possessive way. "This is Harriett Potter. She's my minder for the evening, and much better company than those dolts in any case."

Diggory extended his hand with a gentlemanly smile. "It's very nice to make your acquaintance, Miss Potter."

Looking at him up close, she was able to place where she knew him from at last. He was the Seeker for the Hufflepuff house team, and he was also the boy who'd found her at the scene when Wates had been petrified in her second year. Not her finest moment, but there was no need to be embarrassed about it as Harry. "Pleased to meet you as well. Ginny tells me you're neighbors."

He nodded readily enough. "Just over the hill. My father and I caught a Portkey in with the Weasleys this morning, in fact."

Harry shot Ginny a glance that said, _oh, really?_ Ginny smiled unrepentantly back. "That must have been fun growing up. I had cousin Rigel to play with, but it isn't the same playing Quidditch with just two people."

Diggory's eyes lit up. "You play Quidditch? I'm on the house team at school. Learned everything I know from this one's older brothers."

Ginny pouted prettily. "I taught you a few tricks too, didn't I?" She tilted her head down slightly so that she was looking up through her thick lashes. It was a good trick, but only because she'd adopted a critical expression that made the look cute rather than creepy.

"You taught me how to recognize cheating," Diggory said dryly, not appearing the least bit interested in Ginny's eyes.

Ginny laughed, and Harry noted she had pitched it at a lower register than usual. Clever, if she was attempting to downplay her youth. "Cheating is a time-honored tradition in Quidditch. It's only to be expected, with passions running so high."

"That's true enough," Diggory said, rubbing his neck thoughtfully and completely ignoring the subtle emphasis Ginny had put on the word 'passions.' He was either very oblivious, very good at dissembling, or so used to thinking of Ginny as a child that her attempts to steer his focus didn't register. "No one is expecting a clean match tonight, that's for certain."

"Speaking of, we should get going if we're going to meet our folks before it starts," Harry put in, smiling politely at Diggory to soften her abrupt withdrawal from the conversation. She couldn't let Ginny continue to embarrass herself in good conscience, no matter how amusing it was.

The Hufflepuff smiled his understanding and bade them a kind farewell before making his way back to his dad. Ginny sighed at his leaving but shrugged with equanimity as they headed back toward the Weasleys' tent site.

"Didn't seem too keen," the redhead commented. She didn't seem bothered by this fact.

"He sees you as a little sister," Harry told her.

She nodded sagely. "He looked at me like Bill does. Still, we must practice where we can, yes?"

"Just what are you practicing for?" Harry asked, despite not being entirely sure she wanted to know.

Ginny gave her a disparaging frown. "Even you aren't that aloof, Harry. I may be the seventh child of a disgraced family but I'll be expected to marry too one day. I'm not dense. I know it's going to be an uphill battle. I lack both personality and circumstance, but at least the former I can fake, if I use elements of distraction and capitalize on my physical attributes."

Harry, disturbed at the idea of a thirteen-year-old using physical assets to social advantage, allowed her gaze to slide into frank honesty. "You do have personality, Ginny. It's not one that complements everyone, but that's good. You have the personality of…curry. It's spicy, but interesting."

"I have the personality of a stomach flu," Ginny said, grimacing. "There's no need to be polite about it. I'm extremely rude and I don't generally apologize for it. I like making people uncomfortable. I enjoy putting them off balance. Now I have to learn the sort of likability that people marry for, though. I'm not complaining—everyone has to learn it, near as I can tell. I'm just behind schedule. Any help would be appreciated."

Harry thought about that as they walked. She supposed social nicety was a good skill for everyone to have. "Okay. The first thing you should work on is using your age to your advantage. It might seem counterintuitive to your eventual purpose to downplay your sexuality, but at this point boldness will work against you and draw attention to the sharper aspects of your personality. Your goal should be to soften the edges people perceive instead. Speech patterns will go a long way toward this, as will a tiny bit of projected uncertainty. People expect females to lack confidence in any case, so a small dose of self-deprecation will slot you neatly into most people's expectations—they won't notice even relatively obvious slip-ups once they've categorized you. People are mentally lazy like that…"

She gave all the advice she could think of that might be useful to Ginny's purpose. By the time they reached their destination, she had only one last suggestion.

"Talk to Pansy Parkinson," she told her earnestly. "My cousin says she's an expert at this sort of thing."

Ginny raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Parkinson? But she's so…soft. Delicate. Sweet. I don't know. She just doesn't seem the type to need anything like this."

Harry smiled slightly. "She might surprise you."

They stopped before a tent with the name 'Perkins' printed on the flap. "We borrowed it," Ginny explained, not an ounce of embarrassment in her voice. She ducked in and Harry followed, emerging in a very spacious multi-room tent with vaulted ceilings and a multitude of beds crammed into all available spaces.

"There you are, Ginny," Mr. Weasley stood from the kitchen table and smiled at Harry. "Thank you for returning my errant child, Miss Potter."

"She was excellent company, Mr. Weasley," Harry said, smiling back. "Thank you for letting me borrow her for a couple of hours."

"Is your father working security for the Minister tonight?" he asked.

"Not if he can help it," Harry said. "It's his day off."

"He best steer clear of the Top Box, then," Arthur chortled. "The Minister can be quite insistent, and Lord Potter is his favorite Auror."

Harry grimaced. "We're actually sitting in that box."

"Really?" Ron popped his head out from behind one of the dividing curtains. "We've got tickets there, too! Dad got a favor out of Ludo Bagman, and he got us all seats!"

Harry politely masked her surprise with a broad smile. "That's excellent. We can all watch the game together, then."

"Is Rigel with you?" Ron asked, coming out to plop down on a stool beside where Ginny stood.

"Still in South America, I'm afraid," Harry said. "You probably won't see him until the school term starts."

Ron shook his head bemusedly. "Trust Rigel to pick learning over the Quidditch World Cup."

Harry smiled but didn't defend her cousin. Or was it herself? She wasn't sure.

"I expect your parents will be looking for you soon, Harry," Mr. Weasley reminded her.

"Yes, you're right. Thanks for hanging out with me, Ginny. See you all in a bit." She ducked out of the tent and had to swerve sharply to avoid colliding with George on his way in.

"There's the sister-knapper!" he cried jovially.

"Not having second thoughts are you?" Fred ruffled her hair in a patronizing way. "No refunds or exchanges."

Harry stepped out of his reach. "Too late. She's your problem again."

"Ah, but soon we won't have any problems at all, will we Freddie?"

"No, indeed, Georgie," Fred agreed heartily. They had an air about them that spoke of grand plans and world domination.

"What are you two up to?" she asked, squinting at their too-satisfied expressions.

"Up to?"

"Up to?"

"I'm hurt."

"I'm deeply offended."

"You're mental, the both of you," she sighed. "Just try not to break the universe. Some of us enjoy living in it."

"No promises, Harry," the chorused. She wondered if they had any idea how alarmingly foreboding that habit was.

Darkness was falling, so she made her way back to her family's plot with due haste. She could see a light on inside so she readied an apology for returning so late before pushing her way through the entrance. When she stepped into the common area, however, her mother scarcely glanced at her beyond a smile and a quick, "Oh, good, you're back." She was too preoccupied tending to Sirius, who was slumped on one of the couches with a bag of ice pressed to one eye and the fingers of his other hand kneading the back of his neck carefully.

"What happened?"

"I was attacked," Sirius groaned.

James stepped in from the kitchen with more ice and laughed. "He picked a fight with a Bulgarian chap twice his size—without drawing his wand, mind you."

"He insulted me," Sirius protested.

"He wasn't even talking to you," Lily said, openly exasperated.

"He called Krum the greatest seeker alive," Sirius said vehemently, wincing around a split lip as he did so. "That's an insult to everyone who's ever heard of Josef Wronski."

"Wronski doesn't even play for the Grodzisk Goblins anymore," James pointed out.

"He's still _alive_ ," Sirius stressed. "It's the principle of the thing. Can't just go around making comments like that willy-nilly. Not for some seventeen-year-old with a couple of broom endorsements, anyway."

He continued to grumble as James helped him position the other bag of ice over his split lip. Lily favored Harry with a dry look and said, "What was that you said about grown men not requiring other people's supervision?"

Harry sighed sadly. "I'm so disillusioned."

"None of that," Sirius complained. "James, your daughter is cynical and depressing."

James dropped the ice with an affronted sniff and Sirius yelped as the cold pack landed in his lap. Harry laughed and took out her wand. "Let me fix it, Uncle Sirius. Otherwise your whole face will be numb by the time the match starts."

"You can't do underage magic outside of school," Lily protested. Her eyes were sympathetic as she gazed at Sirius' pitiful expression, though.

"What will Mr. Malfoy say if Lord Black shows up at the Top Box looking like he lost a fist fight?" she mused aloud.

James grimaced and Sirius groaned. Lily gave in with good grace. "All right, but we tell no one of this."

Harry grinned a bit. "Hold still, Uncle. It'll only hurt if I make it worse."

His expression went from relieved to apprehensive in an instant. Once she began the healing process, however, he relaxed entirely with rueful gratitude. Cuts and bruises were nothing to her skills, and before two minutes had passed Sirius looked like his old self. She paused as the last of his split lip closed together and asked her parents, "What do you think: should I make his nose a little more crooked?"

Sirius placed a protective hand over the appendage in question and leaned away from her so fast his chair tipped over. From his sprawled position on the ground he pouted. James chuckled as he helped his friend up. Sirius brushed himself off regally and said, with as much dignity as he could conjure, "Well? What are we all standing about for? We better get a move on if we don't want to miss the start."

They warded the tent for theft and started toward the stadium. They weren't alone by any stretch of the imagination. A sea of bodies lay between them and the entrance, so they shuffled slowly along with the sluggish momentum you might expect from a herd of cattle. Vendors pressed in on all sides, desperate to sell their last wares before the match got underway. She couldn't help but wonder why a stadium so large would have only one major entrance. Security, perhaps, though she didn't know what, short of depriving every spectator of his or her wand, could be done to eliminate the risks posed by having so many witches and wizards gathered in one place.

Once inside the stadium, they made better time. For a small fee, Sirius secured them passage to the topmost level of the stands via private lift. They stepped out onto a metal platform that wound its way precariously along the outer rim of the stadium. Doors along its length led to various private boxes that sold for a spectacular amount of money to the right bidder. She wasn't surprised to see signs endorsing the names of notoriously wealthy families from both Britain and the European continent on the doors they passed en route to the Top Box.

She didn't know why or how Sirius had secured them seats in the same box that the Minister of Magic would be sitting in, but she suspected he had been more involved in politics of late than he let on to even her parents and Remus. At times she found newspaper clippings on his desk in his family's library instead of in the rubbish bin, where the paper usually wound up after being gutted for its Quidditch section.

After showing the security wizard at the door their tickets, they were allowed entrance. Harry had to blink sharply at the eye-watering décor before her brain let any other details about the box penetrate her consciousness. It, like the rest of the stadium, was constructed of lightweight wood that was nevertheless reinforced with a suite of stabilizing and strengthening spells to keep the cheaply made structure robust. Unlike the rest of the stadium, the Top Box was reinforced with layered shield charms and other protective wards to protect those within from stray balls and players.

As though in protest of the perfectly practical frame, the interior of the box looked as though a gilded lily had been violently ill all over it. Gold and purple seat cushions that were obviously more decorative than comfortable cluttered the chairs. A banner with some sort of ugly abstract depiction of Quidditch players in unlikely poses proclaimed 'International Magical Cooperation' in proudly flashing cursive. The only thing gaudier than the decorations was the pattern on the Minister's robes. He had made the unfortunate decision to attempt a show of neutrality by combining the Irish green and white with the Bulgarian team's burgundy and black. The overall effect was that of a drawing room curtain gone wrong.

He seemed not to notice the winces his attire was drawing, however, as he sprang toward them upon their entry and clapped James on the back with eager gratitude. "About time, old boy! I was beginning to think Dawlish's relief would never come. Thank goodness it's you and not that other bloke—what's his name? The one with that horrid cough?"

"Ah, Minister," James interrupted, grimacing apologetically. "I'm not actually here as part of your security detail tonight."

"Not…" The Minister looked very put out indeed. "Well, what are you doing here, then?"

"He's my guest, I'm afraid," Sirius said, reaching out to shake the portly wizard's hand briefly. "Couldn't find anyone else last minute; you know how it goes."

"Lord Black!" The Minister was all smiles again. "Good to see you. So you've put those tickets to good use after all. I was beginning to wonder—the match is due to start any minute."

"Wouldn't miss it," Sirius assured him. "You remember Lady Potter, of course."

"Naturally." The politician clasped Lily's hand solicitously. "This rickety contraption positively shines with your presence, my dear."

Harry struggled to keep her eyebrows from rising in amusement. Is that how Rigel sounded when he complimented people? She might have to cut back on that a bit.

"It seems sturdy enough," Lily said, deflecting the compliment easily in favor of looking around the box.

"Yes, well, we've the younger Black brother to thank in part for that," the Minister said jovially. "Fine work, he does." If Sirius was surprised to hear that Regulus had been the architect behind some of the stadium's infrastructure, he didn't show it.

"The Black family delivers only the best," a voice from behind the Minister put in. Harry leaned sideways a bit until Narcissa Malfoy came into view. Her husband and son were standing beside her, in the corner of the box where a table of libations had been artfully tucked.

"When they can be convinced to stir themselves at all," Mr. Malfoy added with a slight drawl that indicated he was making a joke.

"What have you contributed lately then, Malfoy?" Sirius said, not entirely without humor.

Before Malfoy Sr. could return the barb, the Minister spoke enthusiastically on his behalf. "In fact, Lord Malfoy has recently made a _sizable_ donation to St. Mungo's Hospital. Yes, very charitable, don't you think?"

"It's lovely," Lily said, after an awkward half-second in which it became clear James and Sirius had nothing to say on the subject of Lucius Malfoy's charitableness. "Where will the money be going?"

"The children's ward," Lucius said silkily. His expression gave the impression that no one ought to be able to find fault with that. Harry was suddenly very tempted to try.

"What a relief for them," she said, smiling up at Mr. Malfoy as though he'd just hung the moon.

"Oh?" The Minister looked down at her and affected an exaggerated look of realization. "Miss Potter, I remember you. Quite a scare at the Gala, wasn't it? We are so fortunate that our youngest generation is coming along so nicely. I suppose you have an interest in St. Mungo's, eh? Going to work there one day? You'll be grateful for patrons like Lord and Lady Malfoy when that day comes, I daresay."

"No doubt," Harry said, eyes wide with earnest fever. "With Mr. Malfoy's donation, perhaps the children's ward can restock some of the potions they've been out of. Is it going toward medical supplies?"

The Malfoys and the Minister all looked at her as though she were a bird out of its natural habitat. After a pause, Narcissa said, "It's going to a new wing, actually."

"Yes, yes, the Malfoy Memory Wing," Fudge said enthusiastically. "To treat those poor children afflicted with maladies of the mind, you see."

"Oh, I do see," Harry said, nodding in patient understanding. "That's a very noble gesture, Mr. Malfoy. I suppose the funds for correcting the shortage of life-saving potions will have to come from somewhere else, though."

Even Sirius and James were staring at her uncertainly now. The Minister faltered for a moment, clearing his throat delicately. "I—ah—am not aware of any such shortage, my dear. I assure you the children's ward is well provided for."

"I'm sure it's very difficult to provide the more expensive treatments to children in need," Harry said, nodding along with the Minister's uncertain words. "It's a sad fact that the most serious illnesses are often the most costly to cure. And of course the underprivileged are more likely to contract such illnesses, aren't they? If a few of the children can't be saved…well, it isn't really anyone's fault, is it?"

Lady Malfoy looked visibly disturbed. "If there are more pressing needs, our donation should of course be applied to those areas first. We can't allow children to go untreated in favor of erecting structural changes to a building." Draco looked up at his mother with surprise, and his father glanced sideways at her with patient resignation.

"Indeed," Mr. Malfoy allowed. "I'm certain our donation can be re-appropriated if there are children in need."

The Minister looked wide-eyed and dismayed. "No, no, there aren't. Miss Potter, I'm not sure where you got this idea—"

"Why, I met one of them," she said, blinking innocently. She could tell by the looks James and Lily exchanged that they were not buying her act for a moment, but the others all wore expressions of perturbed fascination—all except Fudge, who looked like a man barely treading water. She hoped he could see the waterfall approaching fast. "A little girl, not yet old enough to attend Hogwarts." Not that she would, but they didn't need to know that. "She had the most rambunctious nature; at least, she did until she contracted Seifer's Syndrome."

"How awful," Narcissa murmured.

"Well, even modern magic cannot cure some things," the Minister said uncomfortably. "As you said, Miss Potter. No one's fault."

"Seifer's Solution does have a cure though," Lily put in helpfully. She met Harry's eyes and blinked slowly in response to the look of appreciation she found there.

"A potion, isn't it?" Sirius added, almost idly.

"A very expensive potion," Harry said, nodding sadly. "Her family couldn't afford to hire a Potions Master to brew it. They turned to St. Mungo's for help, but the hospital was out."

"Out?" Mr. Malfoy repeated carefully.

"And had been for months, apparently," Harry went on blithely. "It's just too expensive to keep in stock without an immediate need, they said. They put her name on the waiting list, of course, but left alone, the disease progressed to its later stages. The poor girl was bedridden, unable to even lift her head from her pillow by the end."

"The hospital did not set about procuring the potion in the meantime?" Narcissa asked, looking close to outrage.

"Perhaps they did," Harry said, shrugging slightly. "The girl's family could not pay for the cure, however, so it is likely her name was passed over in favor of more wealthy clients who, though their need may not have been as dire, could compensate the hospital for the use of such resources."

"There should be a fund in place for just such a circumstance," Narcissa said stiffly. "Lucius, we must look into this."

He inclined his head regally, though his sharp eyes found Harry's and did nothing to disguise his annoyance. "Of course, Darling. Perhaps we can make a separate donation to the Potions wing."

"I'll match it," Sirius said firmly, clapping his hand on Harry's shoulder and squeezing to let her know she'd said enough.

The Minister's face shifted from despair to utter disbelief. He shook Sirius's hand with a slow-blooming smile, looking like a child who'd been told he would have two birthdays that year and wasn't sure whether to believe it or not. "Well, now…yes, that's a fine idea. Splendid, really. We must take care of the children, I always say. No magical child perishes of a curable disease in Magical Britain! No, sir."

"What should the fund be called?" Draco spoke up at last from beside his mother. He addressed the group at large but his focus narrowed to her as he added, almost challengingly, "Did this little girl have a name? Perhaps it can be in her honor."

She narrowed her eyes for a moment, trying to suss out his expression. Then she realized: he didn't believe her for a moment. His eyes said clearly he thought she'd made the whole thing up. "It's Cora," she said, smiling slightly. "And I'm sure she'd be delighted to hear she had a whole fund named after her."

"She's… alive?" Draco's face said he was aware of how callous the question was, but there was no better way to put it.

"Oh, yes!" Harry said brightly. "Someone donated the cure at the last moment and she recovered completely."

"That's wonderful," Narcissa said, her face relaxing ever so slightly. "It should never have been jeopardized to such an extent, of course, but at least the child has not paid for our oversights. I'm certain we can help the Ministry see that such an accident never occurs again."

"Indeed," Mr. Malfoy said. He didn't even attempt to sound enthused.

"Well, now, that's settled then," the Minister said. He wiped his hands on his robes nervously. "I hate to step out, but I really must see what's become of the Bulgarian delegation. Can't start the match without them, you know. Be back in a jiffy."

He fairly ran from the box, closing the door rather sharply behind him. Auror Dawlish sighed visibly before trailing after him.

"Was that entirely necessary, Harry?" her mother asked, looking torn between amusement and exasperation.

"Think of the children, Mum," she said, widening her eyes once more and even summoning a bit of moisture to them for effect.

"Just go find your seat before you scare the Malfoys away, too." Lily gestured tiredly toward the half-dozen rows of gilt-covered chairs that took up the front half of the box.

"We're not easily deterred, Lady Potter," Draco said promptly. He followed Harry over to the rows of seats, but didn't say anything for a long moment. She wondered if he was waiting for her to entertain him until he turned to look at her and asked, "How's Rigel?"

"Enjoying himself," she said. She might have known that's what he wanted.

"He must be, to stay so long," Draco said, turning away from her to frown out at the crowd. "I was sure he told me he would be back for this."

"He did plan to be here," Harry said, tone apologetic. "The timetable turned out to be less flexible than he thought."

"Hmm." Draco lapsed into silent contemplation and Harry took the opportunity to look out at the massive spectacle going on below them.

The stadium was so big and their seats were so high that it was like peering down into a fish bowl—if the fish bowl were overrun with ants and all of the ants were in a state of utter delirium, that is. The delay in start time appeared to be causing minor riots in several sections of the stands. She watched as Aurors in brightly lit vests bee-lined through rows and rows of spectators toward trouble spots. They looked from her height like flickering lamps lost in a forest of restless red and green leaves.

"Did you send him a birthday card?" Draco asked abruptly.

Harry pulled her attention back to the box and nodded. "Along with a potion I thought would amuse him."

"What did he think of it?" he pressed. His attitude was just casual enough to be suspicious. Why did he care what Rigel thought of his birthday present from Harry?

"He seemed appropriately wary and intrigued," she said. As Draco's eyelids shuttered in response to her words, her eyebrows rose. "Why the interest?"

Her unknowing friend affected a shrug that didn't fool her for an instant. "No reason. He didn't say anything about the trinket I sent him, so I wondered if he might be too busy to send an owl. Guess not."

She didn't have to be an empath to feel the hurt emanating from Draco's closed off expression. She assured him quickly. "Rigel loved the holster you sent. It was a joint gift from you and Miss Parkinson, wasn't it? He told me the engravings are exquisite." It was a far cry from any mere 'trinket,' and that she knew simply from viewing it through the two-way mirror. She was certain it would prove even more handsome to behold in person: all soft leather and embossed fastenings.

Rather than the smirk of self-congratulations she expected, Draco frowned at her. "If he liked it so much, why didn't he tell us? Pansy is half convinced we need to get him something else before term starts."

Harry grimaced. "He can't send letters anymore. The quarantine has been tightened. He can receive mail, but nothing is to leave the affected area until the disease is eradicated. Including Rigel."

"What?" Draco's alarm was palpable. "They can't just keep him there. I'll talk to my father. I'm sure we can arrange an international Portkey. I'll smuggle it in my next letter if that's what it takes—"

"Hold on, Draco; calm down," Harry said, now alarmed for a different reason. She certainly didn't need Archie being whisked unaware to the Malfoys' manor. The blond aristocrat paused in his wild planning, perhaps only in surprise that she'd used his given name. She generally avoided it as Harry, despite having been given permission to use it. "Rigel is fine. He doesn't need to be rescued. He's just going to be there a little longer while they ensure no asymptomatic cases have been left untreated in the villages." The final stages of eradicating an illness were the most critical. Complete quarantine was necessary to ensuring it couldn't take hold somewhere else.

Draco scowled at her lack of urgency. "If he can't communicate outside of the quarantine, how do you _know_ he's fine?"

"We have… another way of communicating," she admitted carefully. "It doesn't fall under the quarantine's restrictions, as it doesn't involve the exchanging of any physical item in or out of the wards. I promise, he's perfectly healthy. And he really does love your gift."

Draco looked both mollified and slightly disappointed. She supposed he might appreciate the chance to have Rigel come back sooner, regardless of the circumstances.

The door to the walkway opened and six fiery-haired Weasleys poured jubilantly into the box.

"There you are, Arthur!" Sirius exclaimed. He greeted the older man with a fiercely fond embrace. "Planning on missing the opening ceremony?"

"Heard a rumor they'd lost the Bulgarian delegation and had to postpone," Mr. Weasley said, chuckling wryly. "I thought the less time my animals were let loose in here the better for everyone." They turned to see the twins pretending to push Percy over the front lip of the box and Mr. Weasley winced. Turning with visible effort away from the sight, he greeted the Malfoys with stiff courtesy. "Lord Malfoy. Lady Malfoy. Good evening."

"Weasley," Mr. Malfoy returned. After a lengthy pause, he added, almost laughably insincere, "So good of you to come."

"Wouldn't miss it," Mr. Weasley said. His voice was painfully upbeat.

"You almost did, though," James put in cheerfully. "How _do_ you lose an entire delegation of foreign dignitaries?"

"You'll have to ask Ludo when he gets here," Mr. Weasley said, shaking his head with exasperation. "He seemed under the impression that Crouch was minding them, but when we saw Crouch he was looking everywhere for Ludo. Said he was supposed to bring the Bulgarian officials to the players' tents for a meet and greet, but never showed."

Harry exchanged a look with Draco. "Not very organized, are they?" she commented quietly.

Draco turned away from the adults' conversation with an unimpressed huff. "The Ministry couldn't organize a picnic for ants."

"Aren't all picnics for ants?" Ginny plopped down on Draco's other side and gave him a sarcastic smile when he frowned at her.

"From the ants' point of view, maybe," Ron sat in the row behind them and was quickly joined by Percy, who put Ron pointedly between himself and the twins. Fred and George seemed unaffected by his show of mistrust, and opted to stand at the wooden railing and look over the field instead of sitting.

"I'm surrounded by Gryffindors," Draco muttered.

"It's probably not contagious," Ginny said blithely. "Unless you're allergic to fun."

"I'm allergic to nonsense." Draco sniffed.

"You do seem to be coming down with something," Harry said, blinking with affected concern at his complexion.

Draco shot her a betrayed look. "You're one of them."

"So are you," she said earnestly. "You just don't know it yet."

Draco's expression of suppressed horror was enough to send both Harry and Ginny into poorly muffled laughter. Just when she thought perhaps the blond pureblood was going to abandon his aloof demeanor and crack a smile, his father called him away.

"Draco, come and meet the Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation," Mr. Malfoy said, gesturing to a man with salt and pepper hair and a greying mustache who had just entered the box. A younger man closer to her father's age with a heavy likeness to the first man trailed his footsteps somewhat slowly.

"That's Mr. Crouch," Ginny said quietly to Harry, leaning slightly closer to keep the men on the other side of the box from overhearing and gesturing to the older man with her eyes. "He's a sour old geezer, but he planned this entire thing almost singlehandedly."

"I thought the tournament was Mr. Bagman's department," Harry commented.

"If you'd ever met Bagman, you'd know he isn't exactly the planning sort," Ginny said, caustically admiring as only she could be. "He's personable enough, and he raised a dragon ton of Galleons in some way or another, of course, but Crouch is the brains behind the whole operation."

"You make it sound sordid," Harry said, shaking her head wryly.

"You haven't seen the Veela yet." Ginny's face smoothed into something deadpan.

Harry rather hoped she was joking. They couldn't have actually contracted Veela for the event… could they?

"Barty! There you are!" Ludo Bagman himself positively steamed into the box, the overwhelming force of his personality enough to nearly eclipse the dozen others who entered in his wake. "I've tracked down the Bulgarian party, as you can see." He gestured grandly to the burgundy-draped wizards as though they were a set of chessmen he'd stumbled across at an antique shop rather than a group of highly distinguished witches and wizards representing the entirety of Magical Bulgaria. "With your leave I do believe we are ready to begin—hang on. Where's Minister Fudge?"

"He left in search of you, not long ago," James relayed. Smiling politely, he offered his hand to one of the Bulgarian delegation members and said, "Welcome, friend. I am Lord Potter, and this is my wife, Lily. Lord Malfoy is—"

"Don't bother, old boy," Bagman said, shaking his head. "They can't speak a word of English. You may as well be talking to the air."

James frowned thoughtfully, still shaking the hands of the Bulgarian party one after another. "I'm afraid I don't speak any Bulgarian."

"Why would you?" Bagman sighed. "I'm quite prepared to hand them off to you, Crouch, if you don't mind. I do have a game to kick off, after all."

Crouch bristled, visibly grasping for poise. "I hate to inform you of your duties again, Ludo, but as Head of the Department for Magical Games and Sports it falls in your purview to…"

Harry stopped listening and turned back around in her seat. It was almost embarrassing to listen to elected officials bluster like schoolboys. Draco rejoined them not long after, a disturbed look on his face. At Harry's mildly questioning glance he muttered, "I can see why Crouch never talks about his son."

Harry rolled her neck as though stretching it and subtly took another glance at the man who'd followed Mr. Crouch into the box. Her earlier impression of an average-looking male in his late thirties wasn't far off. He had a forgettable face, though the expression on it…

"Why does he keep licking his lips?" she asked, sotto voce.

"Because he's twitchy and weird," Draco said, wrinkling his nose in distaste. "I swear to Salazar, all politicians have creepy children." He shuddered in remembrance and she supposed he was imagining the infamous Miss Fudge.

"Your dad's sort of a politician, isn't he?" Ginny commented. The implication was there in her smile.

"Why didn't your parents drown you at birth?" Draco asked, almost conversationally. "Surely six children is enough for even the most industrious of population-crisis cultist."

"Such jealousy is a bit petty among friends, don't you think?" Ginny said sweetly. "I know I'm the seventh child of a seventh-born child and your family hasn't had more than two children a generation in over a century, but there's no need to let it affect our relationship."

Draco actually stared at the redheaded girl for a long moment before replying. "I'm not sure where to begin. We are not friends. We do not have a relationship. You're the seventh born of a line so tainted by Muggle blood you might as well be _Americans_ , and my family _doesn't need to have seven children before one turns out to be magically capable_ —"

"Let's go talk to your parents, Draco," Harry said quickly, cutting the boy off mid-rant and hoisting him up by an elbow.

"So you admit I'm magically capable?" Ginny called after them.

Harry sent Ginny a look that said _you are not helping_ and firmly prevented Draco from whirling back around to argue with the younger girl. "You really shouldn't let her rile you like that. What would Pansy say?"

" _I_ know what Pansy would say," Draco said, frowning at her. "But how would _you_ know?"

Harry rolled her eyes. "Haven't I told you Rigel tells me everything?"

"Why does he keep secrets from us and not from you?" Draco complained as she led him toward the table of refreshments.

"Maybe because I don't pester him about said secrets," Harry suggested wryly. "The surest way to make Rigel clam up is to appear interested in his life in any way." She paused as it occurred to her that she was currently giving her friend advice on how to undermine her own boundaries. What was her life coming to?

They poured themselves drinks from a bowl of green-colored punch. Crouch's son was loitering near the table as well, but he didn't look interested in partaking of anything. He had adopted a rather closed off posture of crossed arms and downturned chin and was somewhat sullenly observing everything around him through hooded eyelids that flickered restlessly. She wondered if he was uncomfortable in social settings, annoyed at his father's frequent troubled looks in his direction, or just didn't like Quidditch that much. Whatever his affliction, she'd seen teenagers less petulant. It was unbecoming on a man his age.

Lily was now attempting to smooth things over with the Bulgarian delegation. In delicately accented French, she welcomed them to the event, introduced everyone of import in the box, and apologized for their Minister's absence. When the Bulgarian Minister of Magic exclaimed in French, "Finally I meet an Eengleshman with an appreciation for culture!" Mr. Crouch's ears turned red. He stuttered out in broken French that he had not thought the Bulgarians would speak any language other than their own. "And why would we not?" the Bulgarian Minister replied haughtily, his French nearly textbook. He then devolved into a long string of what sounded like Italian.

Narcissa Malfoy smoothly took up the conversation, shortly followed by, to Harry's mild surprise, Sirius. Apparently the last generation of Blacks had exposed their children to Italian for enough years that a grasp of the language followed them into adulthood.

"Mother likes to spend a month in Venice with Aunt Bella every spring," Draco told Harry quietly.

She wondered whether her curiosity had been palpable to him. "Perhaps this year she should invite the Head of the Department for International Cooperation," she murmured back. Crouch was now fumbling through a few disjointed sentences in choppy Italian, but it was obvious he was not entirely sure what he was saying.

"It is a bit embarrassing," Draco admitted, talking beneath his breath so the man's son wouldn't overhear them.

They heard the man snort derisively beside them nevertheless and she glanced his way to see the flicker of a sneer twist his already twitchy mouth. She didn't know if it was directed at them or at his father, whose neck was now turning red as well as his ears. Regardless, she and Draco exchanged a look and agreed silently to return to their seats with measured haste.

"Done making pretty with the politicians, Harry?" Fred asked as she reached her seat and discovered him lounging in it irreverently.

"Why? Got a better offer?" she asked, nudging his legs so she had room to walk past him to the seat on his other side.

"For you?" Fred waggled his eyebrows in a way that made him look incredibly foolish. "Always."

"I bet you say that to all your distractions." She pouted, flicking her eyes at George, who was sneaking up behind an unsuspecting Draco in a manner most sly.

Draco whirled and George put his wand away so smoothly even Harry doubted whether he'd had it out. "Malfoy," he said cheerfully, putting a proprietary hand on the aristocrat's arm and maneuvering him into the seat on Fred's left. Draco muttered something uncomplimentary about Gryffindors manhandling him but did not seem to realize he'd allowed himself to be cornered until George plopped down on his left and turned to him with a shark-like grin.

"Says something that the witches are the only ones pulling their weight in international relations, doesn't it?" Fred said airily, drawing Draco's attention from George's predatory expression.

Draco stole a glance at the adults before saying, in a quietly superior voice, "My father speaks both French and Italian, actually. Spanish, too, and a smattering of German. He's just not foolish enough to volunteer as translator for the rest of the match."

"And your mother is?" George asked teasingly.

"Mother is enjoying making the officials look foolish," Draco admitted easily.

"I daresay she'll look pretty foolish herself when it turns out the Bulgarian officials speak English in the first place," Fred said, laughing.

Draco looked scandalized. "They can't possibly. They wouldn't risk insulting the British Ministry like that."

"Ten Galleons say they would." George grinned at the scowling pureblood.

"You're way off," Draco said stoutly.

"Care to put gold on that assumption?" Fred tilted his head in a silent challenge.

Draco looked back and forth between the two of them. There was a frown on his forehead that said he knew something was wrong, but he stepped into the neatly laid trap nonetheless. "Can you even afford such a bet, Weasley?"

"We'll make it an even hundred, if you only play for high stakes, little Drakey," George said, his tone indicating that he expected Draco to decline such an outrageous figure.

Draco, the proud idiot, said, "It's nothing to me, but what will _you_ put up as collateral?"

"A hundred-Galleon idea," Fred said. He whipped out a piece of parchment and unrolled it before Draco's eyes. "This, my young snake, is a one-of-a-kind invention by yours truly. Guaranteed to make you a clean Knut at any honest purveyor of pranking goods."

Harry silently willed Draco to realize he was being maneuvered. He ought to know that the Weasley twins couldn't afford such a bet, and therefore wouldn't be making it unless they thought it a sure thing. The fact that they had such a blueprint on hand was also incredibly suspicious. Draco, however, was studying the parchment with interest. With a haughty sniff, he smiled at Fred and said, "Very well, Weasley. If the invention doesn't mean that much to you, I'll take your outlandish wager."

"Wicked," the twins chorused. Fred and George appropriated a hand each and proceeded to shake Draco between them.

"Idiots." Percy scoffed from the row behind them.

"What's that, Percy?" Fred pretended to cup his ear in confusion. "You _don't_ want us to spend part of our winnings on a new family owl so Errol stops embarrassing you at work? Don't worry. We wont."

Percy's ears turned red and he rose with an annoyed huff. He stalked off to stand near Mr. Crouch's son. She wasn't sure which of them appeared more peeved at being there.

"WELCOME! WELCOME, ONE AND ALL, TO THE QUIDDITCH WORLD CUP!"

Bagman's magically amplified voice rang out through every corner of the stadium. A roar of approval followed his pronouncement; the crowd was so loud in its excitement that Harry could almost feel the spells surrounding the Top Box struggling to keep the noise from overwhelming them. The dampening charms held, but Harry suspected that was due to the incredible integrity of their magic, not the spectators' lack of trying.

The adults meandered to their seats and Harry left her friends to sit beside her family. A clap of thunder shook the coliseum and the whoosh of wind that followed in its wake wasn't wind at all—it was the sound of dozens of the world's fastest racing brooms all whooshing past them at once. The teams had taken the pitch. They zoomed past in green and burgundy comets, and it took Harry a moment of focusing the clear-sight spells on her glasses to see that it wasn't just their speed making them look like shooting stars: the tails of the players' broomsticks were emitting clouds of colored smoke that hung suspended behind them. As she watched, some of the riders slowed enough to write words with their bright trails.

Well, perhaps 'words' was a bit generous. The Bulgarian players appeared to be coordinating their efforts to draw a picture of the Irish team captain in an unlikely position with a goat.

"That better not make the front page," Fudge groaned from the row behind Harry. She stifled a laugh at the thought of the red smoke drawing prominently featured on every _Prophet_ in London.

The riders in green responded by twisting through the crimson fog in a series of acrobatic stunts, both distorting the offensive picture and recapturing the crowd's attention with their spectacular moves. The Bulgarian riders soon followed suit and the audience cheered as each successive trick escalated in skill and recklessness.

"Which one is Krum?" Percy asked Ginny on the other side of the box.

"None of them, obviously," Ron said loudly, rolling his eyes a bit at his older brother. "These are only the trick riders. You wouldn't waste the real players on stunts like this right before a match!"

Whatever Percy was going to say in response was lost in the roar that came next. The crowd had noticed the Irish mascots pouring onto the pitch. Like a green tide rolling into the stadium, a flock of locust-like creatures flooded the field. They were leprechauns, and there must have been thousands of them. Harry's eyes widened as she mentally calculated the number of known leprechaun settlements still in existence and the approximate population statistics listed in the _Compendium of Creatures_ back in Potter Manor. Had the entertainment coordinators rounded up every last leprechaun in existence? No, they couldn't have, she realized after peering a little closer through her magnified lenses. The diminutive green beings below were all male.

They rose into the air en masse, held aloft by some magic of their own making, and began making rounds of the stadium, like a great green thundercloud. From the storm of leprechauns there rained down thousands of glittering gold pieces into the waiting hands of witches and wizards below.

Harry brought her hand up automatically to catch a coin that came toward her face, plucking it from the air and examining it curiously. It looked just like a Galleon. Except it couldn't be. The goblin nation didn't give gold to creatures not classified as beings. She looked toward her parents in confusion. "Do the goblins know the leprechauns are single-handedly destabilizing the magical economy tonight?" she asked, mildly concerned.

Lily laughed at her and held up a coin between her fingers. "These aren't real Galleons, Harry."

"I know," she said. "That's sort of the problem." She was imagining the damage this amount of fake currency inserted into the international Wizarding community could do in a relatively short period of time. Inflation, for starters, and probably—

"It's leprechaun gold, Harry," James said, smiling reassuringly. "It disappears in a few hours."

She nodded her understanding, noticing from the corner of her eye that the Weasley children were looking abruptly less enthused about the coins they'd collected. The disappointment was temporary, however, and quickly forgotten in the wake of what happened next.

"What… what are _those?_ "

The question rippled through the box, echoing the murmurs ripping through the stadium as a whole. The noise level dipped abruptly as thousands of people stopped what they were doing and just… _stared_. There was something happening down below them, something _beautiful_.

Harry felt herself stand to get a closer look, but no matter how close she came to the edge of the box, she couldn't see clearly enough. There was a haze over her eyes, such that she didn't even know what she was looking at. She just knew that it was wonderful.

No, that wasn't right. Her mind was itching, a familiar feeling that drew her back from the edge of some precipice and sharpened her consciousness into fighting back. She slammed mental defenses into place, willing her senses to dull and reason to take hold once more. She thought she heard the distant sound of laughter and supposed the Dominion Jewel was enjoying her disorientation. When she came back to herself fully, she was gripping the railing with both hands, staring down with dry eyes at a formation of lovely women with white-gold hair and sinuous forms dancing in a way that was something like what Rispah's ladies had put together for the alley tournament, and yet nothing like it at the same time.

She pulled her eyes away to see chaos raging everywhere else in the stadium. The pitch had been overrun by witches and wizards alike, all of whom were desperately trying to get closer to the dancing women—no, she realized after a moment of rational thought; not women. Veela.

She slowly stepped away from the box's ledge and looked around for her parents. They were sitting calmly in their seats—too calmly, in fact. Their eyes were vacant and their expressions slack. She took a worried step toward them before noticing Sirius had his wand out and pointed at his friends. When he noticed Harry approaching, he grimaced. "All right, there?"

She nodded. "What are you doing to them?"

"Bit of a counter-trance, if you will," Sirius said distractedly. After a few delicate passes with his wand, he put it away and watched with a satisfied smile as Lily and James blinked and looked around. Their expressions were confused, but focused.

"What on earth?" James muttered, gripping Lily's hand with a frown. He took in the spectacle occurring on the pitch and stood with a groan. "Bloody Veela." He rushed toward the Minister of Magic, who was standing on tiptoe and waving merrily to the magical beings below. James shot a spell at the Minister that had him stumbling backwards and shaking his head sharply, pawing at his ears.

"Thank you, Sirius," Lily said, drawing Harry's attention back to her uncle.

Sirius shrugged. "It's a bitch if you don't know the thrall is coming, eh?"

"How did you fight it off so quickly?" Harry asked, impressed.

"Dated a Veela once," Sirius said, a devilish grin on his face. "Had to learn to resist it if I wanted any say in the relationship. Doesn't affect me at all anymore."

Harry looked around at the box, which was still full of people practically falling over one another to reach the railing for a better view. "They're going to start climbing over that in a moment," she said fearfully, eyeing Ron in particular. "What do we do?"

"Watch your father," Lily said, indicating James, who was leaving officials clutching at their ears in his wake. "If you block the ears, it helps a person fight off the influence."

"I can't hear their singing, though," Harry said, frowning.

"The sound they give off is not at a pitch your mind can make sense of, but the magic still gets in through the ears," Lily explained. "Go help your friends, won't you, Harry? I'll ask Mr. Bagman if he can't get the mascots under control."

Harry picked her way toward the Weasleys, noting with a small amount of humor that Mr. Weasley appeared unaffected by the Veela, but was nevertheless having a good laugh at his children's expense even as he subtly prevented them from doing anything too dangerous.

Her amusement fled when she saw Draco. The blond was hunched over in his seat, clutching his head between his hands. He hadn't been hit with one of her father's ear-ringing jinxes, though. His face was screwed up in acute pain and sweat beaded on his forehead and neck. It was his empathy, she realized with growing horror. It was overwhelming him with so many people gone effectively mad in such close quarters. While the spells on the box would likely diminish the emotions he felt from the crowd as a whole, there were still far too many people within the Top Box currently out of their minds with dazed lust and extreme disorientation.

She looked around for his parents, but Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy were still struggling to throw off the influence themselves. Mr. Malfoy looked largely clearheaded, but his attention was on bringing his wife back to full self-awareness and he hadn't noticed his son's predicament.

Harry sank onto the floor in front of Draco and put her hands over his ears gently. He flinched away from her but she caught him with a sharp, " _Shh_." He froze as she bent her will toward consolidating her own emotions in a near-meditative state of calm. "Focus on me, Draco. Can you tell where my edges are? Let my emotions block the rest out, then find the part that's you." It was a technique they'd often used to separate Draco from his gift, back before he'd gained a marked control over its filtering.

His shoulders trembled slightly but his breath slowed and after a long pause the tendons in his neck relaxed. It was only a minute more before he lifted his head and assumed a posture that was almost normal. "My parents," he said. She could tell he meant it to be a question, but he was still a bit removed from reality.

"They're fine," she said, still projecting the same steady calm. She lowered her hands from his head and rose to sit in the chair beside him, affecting casualness for the sake of his dignity. She glanced at Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy and saw that they were observing her sharply from across the box. She smiled reassuringly. They did not smile back, but neither did they come to remove Draco from her presence. No doubt they realized that if she didn't know about Draco's gift already, their coming over to panic over him would give something significant away.

"What. Happened." His voice was mildly irritated—a sure sign that he was coming back to himself quickly.

"The Veela enthralled everyone," Harry said. At his confused frown, she realized Draco had never even seen the beautiful beings. He'd been crippled by the collective emotions of those around him before he knew what was happening. "Bulgaria's mascots," she clarified. "Most people weren't expecting them, it seems."

She did glance over at Ginny, who was smiling a bit too smugly at the chaotic scene below them, and wonder how the girl had known there would be Veela when even the Minister was taken by surprise. Mr. Weasley must have been prepared for them, too, for him to be so unaffected. Perhaps Mr. Bagman had told him something and Ginny had overheard. Harry supposed Ginny's Occlumency must be fairly progressed for her to remain in control of her faculties, even considering that she may have been expecting the assault.

"Whose idiotic idea was that?" Draco sneered. Harry had to smile at that. She was privately wondering the same thing.

By then, most everyone in the Top Box had regained their composure and those not utterly outraged by the turn of events were chuckling with self-deprecating humor and applauding the still-dancing Veela with bemused appreciation.

Mr. Crouch was speaking harshly with Mr. Bagman, who had his hands spread in the universal gesture conveying 'Well, what do you want me to do about it?'

Harry's father sent a stag patronus galloping down toward the pitch, where efforts were being mounted to persuade the Veela to stop dancing while simultaneously corralling those spectators still swarming from the stands.

"And the game hasn't even started yet," she muttered, amazed that wizards could be simultaneously coordinated enough to put together an event of such magnitude and yet still so disorganized where it counted.

James had Mr. Bagman over the Sonorous Charm now, attempting to calm the crowd. After a few unheeded platitudes from the Head of Magical Games and Sports, her father simply cast a spell that caused a tone like a broken radio to emit from his wand and into the Sonorous Charm.

Witches and wizards everywhere fell to their knees and clutched at their heads in pain, but the dazed and desperate atmosphere that had filled the stadium dissipated like fog in the wake of a sharp wind. Harry winced, clutching her own ears as reality settled into focus for those around her once again. Down on the pitch, the Veela were being escorted from the stadium by scores of security wizards with what looked like metal earmuffs on.

The Veela didn't go quietly. They summoned fireballs from their hands and shot them off irritably at the security team. The fire only singed at the wizards' coats, so Harry supposed the Veela weren't really trying to hurt them. She had read that, in their bird forms, Veela could create fire that burned nearly as hot as Dragon fire, and had to wonder again who had possibly thought it was a good idea to concentrate so many of them into a stadium of this size, much less without setting proper filtering wards in place around the stands.

"Well, now, wasn't that exciting?" Bagman said, laughing in a somewhat forced manner to the box at large. "Ahem. About time we got the game going, yes?"

"Just get the players out here before the leprechauns start up again," Crouch said, rubbing his temples.

"Right." Bagman cleared his throat before renewing the Sonorous Charm. "AND NOW: THE TEAMS!"

All mayhem was forgotten as the crowd refocused on the actual reason they were there. Cheers went up and spectators regained their seats as the Irish national team was called forth from their box.

"HERE'S RYAN! QUIGLEY! CONNOLLY! TROY! MULLET! MORAN! AANNNNND LYNCH!"

The Irish players burst through the dense fireball smoke the Veela had left in their wake, flying in a tight formation that marked them as seasoned professionals, well trained and stylistically compatible.

"IVANOVA! DIMITROV! LEVSKI! VOLKOV! VUNCHANOV! ZOGRAF! AAAAAAAANNNNND KRUUUM!"

The tenor of roaring from the crowd changed pitch noticeably. Harry didn't follow international Quidditch very closely, but even she knew that Victor Krum was the youngest Seeker to play on a national team in well over a century. She had heard he was still in school but had also heard he was eighteen so she wasn't sure how that could be true. However old he was, he was undeniably the crowd favorite. Even some of the Irish spectators seemed to be enamored with his legend.

Ron whooped in encouragement when the Bulgarian teen dove spectacularly, the steepness of his decent appearing more like a plummet than a controlled swoop until the professional player pulled up in a graceful twist that she was certain required more effort to pull off than the smooth way Krum executed it implied.

To tumultuous applause, the teams took their starting positions above the rather meek-looking referee. She zoomed her omnioculars in on the little man with some amusement; he didn't look as though he'd have the constitution for a professional match of any length of time. Did the officials not expect a long final? Perhaps Krum was just that good.

The match kicked off with a cyclone of movement. The first few moments of a Quidditch match were always dreadfully disorienting, but this was something else. She could only follow so many of the players at once, but what she could see looked like someone playing a masters game of wizard chess at high speed. Maneuvers and counter-maneuvers passed before her eyes so quickly that sometimes she discerned the result before the strategy and had to reverse-engineer the plays in her head with an awe that likely only scratched the surface of what a consummate fan would be able to appreciate.

It became clear early on that the Irish team outmatched the Bulgarians in nearly every way. Their Chasers were a seamless wall of talent, steamrolling past the poor opposing Keeper in play after play. The Bulgarian Chasers were no slouches, but they always seemed to be a beat behind the relentless pace the Irish set. Ireland's Beaters, too, monopolized the Bludgers fiercely, though she noted the Bulgarian Beaters were significantly faster to attack their targets on the rare occasion they stole control of the balls. They were also considerably more pitiless in choosing said targets. It was not twenty minutes in before a substitute Keeper had to be brought on for Ireland, their starting player having suffered a punishing break to his left clavicle in a hit that knocked him clear off his broom.

"Oh, not Bliggly," Ron moaned, both hands tugging at his hair agitatedly. "He can't track overhead shots for his life."

Even if that was true, it didn't seem to matter to the Irish: they never let the Bulgarians have the Quaffle long enough to make a decent attempt on goal in any case. The score climbed higher in Ireland's favor and the Bulgarian fans gradually focused more and more of their attention on their Seeker. The young player's name spilled out in an almost continuous chant as play escalated, though the focused way the Bulgarian Seeker played suggested he didn't notice. She didn't know a ton about the specific strategies associated with Seeking, but to Harry his search pattern seemed erratic. Sometimes he doubled back over the same ground twice or three times before moving onto other areas of the pitch.

She was not the only one who noticed. "Why isn't he going about it more systematically?" Ginny asked, poking Ron in the side until he deigned to pull his eyes from the pitch and glance her way.

"He's Krum, he can do what he wants," Ron said dismissively, turning back to the match eagerly.

Ginny huffed at the non-explanation, but a moment later Draco of all people spoke up from his seat and said, "It's because Lynch is shadowing him. He wants space to maneuver, so he's purposefully disregarding accepted search patterns in the hopes that Lynch will leave off in favor of making his own grid."

"It isn't working," Ginny noted wryly. Lynch was so close behind Krum he could probably count the hairs on the back of the young man's neck.

Draco nodded. "He'll have to try something else soon, or put Lynch in a place his Beaters can—"

He broke off as the crowd gasped collectively. Krum was diving, a dive so much faster than the one he'd displayed at the beginning of the match that it was clear he'd only been warming up before. Lynch tore after him, reckless in his need to close the distance between them. Harry searched the area before them with her omnioculars, but couldn't see the gold flicker that would confirm a sighting of the Snitch.

"It's a feint!" Fred said suddenly.

"How do you know?" Percy demanded.

"He isn't adjusting course as he dives," George said, grinning with excitement. "The Snitch moves constantly—you'd have to make minor adjustments to follow its trajectory even if it stayed in the same relative place."

They were right, Harry realized, watching Krum closely. In her lenses she could see the expression of concentration on his face, but his eyes weren't fixed on anything but the ground. Unless the Snitch had lost its flight spells and was lying motionless in the grass, he was feinting.

They waited for him to veer off, to pull up, but he didn't. The two players plunged toward the earth with deadly speed. "They're going to crash!" Ginny cried. She seemed more excited than dismayed at this prospect.

"Lynch is," Ron said, grimacing.

Draco nodded distractedly, but the rest of them were too entranced by the scene before them to offer any more commentary. The Seekers were seconds from crashing, falling faster than gravity, and Harry thought surely Lynch would realize, this close to the ground, that they weren't chasing anything after all. His attention seemed to be completely focused on keeping pace with Krum, however. Didn't he see the ground coming up to meet him?

There was a sickening crunch as Lynch attempted to abandon his dive too late and careened into the dirt in a spray of grass and splinters. Krum, on the other hand, spun out of the dive with a move like a corkscrew, turning his downward momentum into a spiral that carried him parallel to the ground until he'd shed enough speed to pull up into the air once more.

Ireland called a timeout as medical personnel rushed onto the field with a stretcher. They would have a few minutes for their medic to patch him up enough to continue or else bring on the reserve Seeker.

Many in the Top Box stood and stretched their legs, some migrating to the refreshment table while others discussed the first part of the match with vigor.

"—waste of a good broom, I'd say," Sirius was saying cheerfully to James and Lily.

"—not going to matter if Bulgaria can't score with the Quaffle!" Ron and Draco were in a heated debate over the outcome of the match, with Fred and George egging each on in turn with ridiculous irregularity.

Crouch was attempting to draw the Bulgarian delegation into a conversation by praising Krum's performance in rudimentary French. He seemed somehow oblivious to the dark glower his son was sending him from his seat, which he hadn't bothered to get up from. Bagman was reading out a series of advertisements over his Sonorous Charm with a bored expression on his face. Fudge conversed happily with the Malfoys, who returned his conversation with somewhat less obvious enjoyment.

A knock on the door preceded one of the security wizards sticking his head in and saying, "A Lord Flint here to see you, Minister."

Sirius looked around with interest and stood as Fudge waved for the pureblooded lord to be allowed in. The dark-haired man swept into the box with an expression of poised indifference, eyes flickering over the company in a way that was neither friendly nor dismissive.

"Good evening, Minister," he said respectfully, sweeping a bow as elegant as any she had seen.

"Flint! Good to see you," Fudge said, coming forward to clasp his hand jovially. "Might have known I'd see you tonight. Where's your boy? Never see you at a game without him." The Minister chuckled and didn't seem to notice the flicker of unease that crossed Flint's expression as he replied.

"Marcus could not get the time off work, unfortunately. Now that he is out of school, I see considerably less of him," Flint Sr. said, his features settling into a study of wistfulness that was, to Harry's eyes, passably convincing.

"They do grow up so fast," Fudge said sympathetically. "Why, my own daughter is approaching her maturity, and I fear she is developing an independent streak a mile wide. But you ought to have brought your wife! I have not seen the lady in ages, it seems."

Flint's smile was regretful, but it did not reach his eyes. "My darling wife is ill and has been for some time, Minister Fudge. She rarely can summon the energy to leave her bed at present. If the Mediwizards do not find some cure soon… I fear for her."

The Minister looked stricken. "Merlin, Flint, I am dreadfully sorry. Please convey to her my sincerest well wishes."

Flint inclined his head gratefully and took a moment to compose his face into something more stoic before turning the subject to more neutral matters. As Sirius stepped forward to greet the wizard he and Archie had often shared Quidditch matches with, Harry marveled at the man's audacity. Was he really going to maintain a fiction of his wife's grave illness until he found her? Or perhaps… she narrowed her eyes and considered the clever way Flint Sr. had laid the ground for grief and sympathy from his fellow wizards. _He's going to fake his wife's death,_ she marveled. It wouldn't be hard, if the knowledge of her supposed illness became common enough.

She suppressed a huff as she turned her eyes away from the spectacle. The galling thing was that if she didn't know any better she might believe him, too. He was fairly convincing, if you weren't looking for a lie. How could someone so normal-seeming hide such terrible secrets? An abusive marriage, a runaway wife, and a son that hated him, and there he stood, bold as brass, making himself out to be the sympathetic party. She was tempted to go and introduce herself, perhaps rudely inquire as to the exact nature of his wife's illness, but she held herself back with the knowledge that Mrs. Flint might in fact be best served by the fiction of her own demise. If Mr. Flint were not concerned with searching for her, she could live the remainder of her life without fear.

It still rankled that his crimes would likely never be revealed or penalized. She knew that this was somewhat hypocritical of her. Who was she to resent another's secret crimes? She, who did not show her true face to the world. She, who hid behind a wall of carefully laid deception and used emotions to her advantage whenever she pleased. She wanted to believe she was different, that she was not hurting others the way Flint Sr. had, but was that strictly true? She was neck deep in lies and could no longer say with confidence that she grasped every consequence to her actions. Could she really count herself so different from Lord Flint?

The play started up again with a wobbly Lynch taking the air on a fresh broom, and those in the box regained their seats. Play resumed in much the same way, but the atmosphere in the Top Box began to liven considerably as the match wore on and the spectators grew somewhat restless. The Weasleys were soon shouting over one another in an effort to make their criticisms and predictions heard, and Draco couldn't hold back the force of his opinions very long before he was obliged to argue them at length between plays. Sirius and James jumped in with their own comments and even Mr. Malfoy was not above a scathing remark when the Irish beaters blundered a good shot.

Despite the eclectic group of people, it was _fun_. The game seemed to draw them outside of themselves, making everyone forget their social considerations for a little while. All that mattered was the match—for most of them, at least. Harry saw Crouch Jr. stalk out with a scowl after a time, evidentially fed up with the animated atmosphere, as though the good spirits of those around him were personally offensive. Harry didn't dwell on the man for long—she was having too good a time to ruin it by over-analyzing the negativity of one person.

When the Bulgarian Beaters singled out Moran and attempted to remove him entirely from play through a combination of Blurting and Blagging, the crowd roared its disapproval, but no protest was heard more loudly than that of the Weasley twins, who jumped at Ludo Bagman and yelled into his Sonorous Charm, "THAT'S RUBBISH!"

Mr. Weasley looked mortified, his ears a startling shade of red, but then the Bulgarian Minister began laughing loudly and Fudge sent Mr. Weasley a grateful look. He therefore refrained from giving the twins a harsh talking to, but did take out his wand and charm their butts to stick to their seats, which were in turn bolted to the floor, much to the continued amusement of the Bulgarian wizards. She supposed this was more entertaining than the match for them at this point, as the Bulgarian team was losing badly to the Irish Chasers. The score was now 170-10 Ireland, an unrecoverable figure so late in the game as the players were losing steam and pressure increasingly turned to the Seekers to bring the match to a close.

All eyes were on Krum, but it was Lynch who saw the Snitch first. He took off desperately for the golden ball, but the Irish Seeker was in bad shape after multiple collisions and Krum maneuvered right around him to snatch the little thing out of the air. He held it triumphantly as the stadium erupted with noise, smiling grimly as his team congratulated him. Bulgaria had lost, 160-170, but they had ended the game on their terms, at least. Prolonging the match would only have made Ireland's lead more audacious.

The players gathered in the center to shake hands in exhausted good sportsmanship, Lynch even grinning ruefully at Krum and insisting he keep the golden Snitch despite the fact that it was traditionally presented to the winning team. The Irish mascots were somewhat…less graceful in their victory celebration.

The swarm of tiny green creatures raged about the stadium, showering everyone again in fake Galleons and, after several passes, obscuring even the players on the field with the deep green smoke they emitted— _wait, that isn't right_ , she thought. _Leprechauns don't emit smoke like that_. It wasn't the bright, kelly green of sparklers but a deep, grey-green smog that emanated from nowhere in particular and yet was slowly filling the entire stadium with clouds so thick they seemed the dampen the very energy of the crowd.

"Dad…" Harry said, tugging on James' sleeve without taking her eyes off the darkening smoke. Little crackles of lights were starting to flicker ominously in the center, like quiet lightning. "I don't think that's supposed to be happening."

Her parents turned to look at the rising smoke. "Mr. Bagman," James called over to the official. "Is this smog part of the show?"

Bagman broke off from his conversation with the Minister to crane his head around toward the pitch. "Ah, I'm not really sure… well, no. Not exactly."

James looked toward where Auror Dawlish was standing watch at the door and said, "Get a unit on the pitch to find the source of this smoke."

The Auror left with a nod, and James turned back to examine the smoke with narrowed eyes. Lily put a hand on James's arm uneasily. "Disgruntled fans?" she asked.

"Maybe." James's tone was noncommittal.

Harry didn't think he believed that any more than she did. The smoke was condensing, almost black now in its density. It was garnering notice from the rest of the stands; she could hear the strangely muted sounds of people shouting, though she could no longer see the stands on the other side of the stadium through the smog. The dark smoke writhed abruptly, coalescing into the center of the pitch and roiling.

"It's making some kind of symbol," Lily surmised.

There did appear to be a kind of purpose to the smog's development. After a few moments in which those in the box watched silently, the smoke took on a faintly intelligible shape. It was a skull, with hollowed out spaces of darkness to suggest eyes, nose, and mouth, the later of which was stretched wide in the facsimile of a scream. From the open mouth, more smoke poured, twisting itself into the image of a snake as it stretched outward.

"Whatever is that supposed to be?" Fred asked, a tone of somewhat forced sarcasm biting its way through his words.

George lent deadpan to disgust in answering. "It looks like a corpse sucking on a—"

The head of the smoke skull exploded outward without warning, rocking the stadium in a wave of pure pressurized magic. People who'd been standing hit the deck involuntarily as the stands trembled under the violent pressure. Audible cracks echoed like cannon fire through the air.

"The foundations—" James bit out, but there was no time for anyone to do anything.

In the next moment the snake, the only part of the smoky image that hadn't dissipated with the pressure wave, lashed out. Its tail came down like an anvil to score the pitch in a raking movement that left a trail of charred and decayed grass in its wake. They had only a moment to register the symbol burnt into the pitch—a more sophisticated version of the snake-eating skull—before the snake's tongue whipped like an arc of lightning their way.

The tongue of smoke had the appearance of intangibility, yet it connected with the wards around the Top Box like several tons of heated steel. The protective magic held for a second, then buckled ominously. James dove toward the Minister of Magic—the obvious target of the precision attack—and Lily pulled Harry bodily to the ground with a strength she'd had no idea her mother possessed. Even braced between the rows of seats, Harry felt it in her bones when the shielding wards shattered and the remnants of the attack connected with the box itself.

The crunching blow that followed took her breath away. She felt the stabilizing charms go next under the strain of damage done to the box's infrastructure. The box began to sway. Harry experienced a lightheaded sense of disorientation not unlike the vertigo that set in at the top of a very high tree on a windy day.

As soon as she gathered her feet, Harry stood to survey the damage done. There was a gaping hole where the center of the railing used to be. Politicians and dignitaries were strung like discarded dolls about the box, but other than one wizard who was nursing a gash to his left elbow there didn't seem to be any injuries beyond bruises.

She took a single step toward the injured man, a half-formed idea of healing him in her mind, but lost her footing as the box groaned and swayed drunkenly beneath her. Even as she grabbed for a handhold, she heard the roar of wood giving way to failed engineering and gravity.

The Top Box split down the middle with a sickening squeal and half of what once had been a level surface became a broken incline with a gaping chasm at its conclusion. The other side of the box remained in place, but was in the space of moments several feet above them. She could see the horrified faces of those on the other half of the split, Ron and Percy's included, as her side fell sharply down and away. Harry was closer to the breakpoint than she was comfortable with, but her reflexes were catching up to her shock and quickly suppressing it to functional levels. She braced bent legs on either side of the aisle she was in, keeping her back flat against the incline even as it began trembling against the laws of physics to remain aloft.

Levering herself carefully upwards to see over the rows of slanted chairs, Harry spotted her mother further up the incline, looking down at her fearfully even as she hooked her arm between two chair legs still bolted to the platform. "Harry," she called unsteadily. "Are you all right?"

Harry nodded her head and gestured to where James was struggling to hold a panicking Fudge a couple rows over. "Help Dad," she called back. "I'm—"

"Ginny!" Mr. Weasley's frantic shout drew Harry's head around with a snap. The man was struggling to find a way down from the elevated edge of the broken box, which jutted out over their side like a cliff, but there was a good six feet between the intact half and the half Harry was on. Any attempt to jump down would likely result in a roll off the broken end to whatever gut-wrenching fall waited below. She spared a moment to pray that there hadn't been anyone directly below the box when it cracked in two, then refocused on what she could do now.

Harry adjusted her footholds so that she was nearly standing between the chairs, leaning sharply away from the incline to keep her balance. Ginny was in the front row, lying flat against the sloped platform, so close to the end that her feet dangled over open air. She held onto a chair leg with her left arm, but her right dangled at such an angle that Harry knew immediately it was broken. The girl's face was pale and she panted visibly against the pain she was in.

Fred and George were two seats left of their sister, and had somehow managed to remain sitting upright despite the shocks that had sent everyone else sprawling—no, she realized, they were still affected by the Sticking Charm Mr. Weasley had put on them earlier. She eyed the empty space where the railing had once been in front of them and decided those charms had probably saved their lives. Now, however, they were rendered incapable of moving to pull their sister away from the edge.

Harry grasped the chair to her left firmly and kicked off with her right foot to hoist her leg over until she was straddling it. Thus positioned, she relinquished one of her handholds to retrieve her wand from an inside pocket. If she could get a clear line of sight to the girl, she could levitate her out of harm's way. Before she'd got through half the incantation, however, Ginny was already moving. The redhead screamed as her legs and torso became airborne, but she wasn't sliding—she was floating. Someone else had the same idea Harry had. She looked around, but no one else on the broken side of the box had their wands out.

"Let go, idiot!"

Harry whipped her head up toward the ledge above them, where Draco's head and torso glared down at them. His hand held a wand steady on Ginny's partially floated form with white knuckles. Ginny seemed to hear him, but couldn't move her head around to see well enough to be comforted; she hesitated on letting go of her desperate hold on the chair. Harry shuffled down a chair until she came into Ginny's line of sight and called, "It's all right, Ginny! We've got you!"

She added her levitation charm to Draco's; she trusted the blond boy, but lifting a human body with the spell was more difficult than he likely knew. Ginny let go with a tremulous gasp of fear and squeezed her eyes shut as her body left the angled floor entirely. Harry kept a steady flow of power to support the girl's weight and let Draco control the motion on his end. The pureblooded boy was a study in concentration as he guided Ginny up the remaining feet to the intact half of the box.

Harry let her levitation charm drop and scanned about her for any more pressing disasters. Seeing no one in immediate danger of falling, she hefted herself nimbly over another row until she could reach the twins. "All right, there?" she asked, breathing somewhat heavily with exertion.

Fred scowled down at the chair he was stuck to. "We don't know the countercharm," he growled, attempting to hurl himself out of the seat without success.

George put a hand on his brother's shoulder with grim patience. "Don't do that, Freddie—only think what would happen if you succeeded."

Fred looked at the gaping lack of railing in front of him and swallowed. "Right. Well, do we saw our arses off or what?"

"Can't your father cancel it from where he is?" Harry asked, peering up toward where Mr. Weasley was attempting to split his attention between Ginny and the twins.

"Broke his wand, I think," George said. "Saw him toss it aside when it didn't work before he tried to climb down to us."

Harry didn't know the countercharm for a sticking spell either. But she knew someone who did. "Sirius!" she yelled, looking around for the dark-haired wizard.

"Over here, Harry!" It was her mother. She was wedged in a kneeling position near James and the Minister, and on the slanted floor between them was Sirius, looking very much unconscious.

"Sirius?" she said again, her voice less firm. There was blood about his head, fresh and glistening.

"He'll be okay," Lily called. There was a confidence in her voice that was reassuring. "Can you three make it over here? We'll starting levitating you up to the others."

Harry shook her head. "We need the counter to the Sticking Charm," she told them, gesturing to Fred and George's predicament.

"I'll do it," James said, holding the Minister down even as he shifted himself up to get a clear sightline. "Tell me when you're ready." The twins quickly grasped the arms of their chairs and braced their legs for the release. Harry sent a thumbs up to James, who responded with a vigorous, "Liberacorpus!"

Fred and George let out shaky sighs of relief as their backs separated from the seats at last. The three of them picked their way over to the adults, checking aisles as they climbed over them for anyone else trapped or unconscious. The found no one else, and Harry hoped it was because the rest had been thrown to the side of the box that didn't break away, not because they had slipped over the edge before anyone had regained the wits to notice.

There were four or five ministry officials huddled near where Minister Fudge was curled up under James' watchful gaze. Adding in her family and the twins made about a dozen people who needed moving. First Sirius needed tending to, however. Harry took out her wand again and crouched beside her uncle, using her knees to brace herself in the mouth of an aisle so her hands stayed free.

"Here," Fudge protested weakly from where he huddled against the platform. "No underage magic—"

Lily interrupted. "I think this falls neatly under the exception for dangerous circumstances, don't you? Do what you must, Harry."

She nodded, choosing to take that as blanket permission to do whatever magic she deemed prudent until they got out of this mess; she had a feeling the night was far from over. A stream of diagnostic charms told her all she needed to know about Sirius' condition—he'd cracked his head hard enough to put his lights out on impact, but his brains were in no danger of coming out his ears. It was the work of minutes to fuse the thin skin at the back of his head together neatly and reduce the swelling. There was nothing she could do about the headache he would have upon waking, but she deemed him safe to rennervate after a final check.

Lily smiled at Harry proudly, a small moment of warmth in a chilling situation, and woke Sirius directly. The prone wizard inhaled sharply as his eyes flickered open and he groaned like a man hung over. "Why's the world tilted?" he garbled out between moans.

"The box split in two," James explained shortly.

"My head feels split in two," Sirius grouched. He attempted to sit and hissed at the dizzying sensation the movement caused.

"Here, Uncle Sirius," Harry said, reaching deep into her pocket. She'd thought it might seem odd to carry her potions bag into the stadium with her, so it was miniaturized in her pocket. She would never be without it, but that didn't mean she didn't know how strange it looked to carry it at a sporting event like the Quidditch World Cup.

Her uncle took the potion she handed him without question, knocking it back and grimacing at the taste. "Aren't you prepared," he said wryly.

She huffed. "What's the point of an emergency supply of anything if you don't have it in an emergency, Uncle?" She peered into his eyes in an attempt to judge his coherency.

Sirius waved her off and took stock of his surroundings. He peered about the steeply listing platform, taking in the splintering wood and whining metal where the high end of the slope was still connected, albeit precariously, to the box's original frame. He then looked up toward the ledge above them, grimacing resignedly. "I suppose the door to the stairs is up there, eh?"

"What a talent for summation you have," Lily said, letting out a shaky laugh. "Yes; we have to get everyone up there before we can evacuate this death trap."

"Don't suppose those wankers up there stuck around to see what became of us," Sirius said, sounding not at all hopeful about the prospect of rescuers.

"Our father is up there with Percy and Ron," George reported. "His wand is broken, though, and Ginny is hurt."

"Best get you two up first, then, so you can help your sister," Sirius said, reaching for his own wand.

"Send Harry up first," Fred said, shaking his head. "She can heal Ginny. We're useless either way."

Harry settled the argument before it could gain steam, simply brandishing her wand at Fred and catching him in a levitation charm before he had the sense to resist. She ignored his offended yelp and let her magic carry him surely up to the platform above them. She saw several pairs of arms reaching out over the ledge to guide the redhead in the last foot or so and released her spell when she felt a tug against her control on the other end.

"You're next," she warned George, who was looking at her in equal parts exasperation and gratitude.

"I've got him, Harry," Lily said, putting a hand on her arm. "Rest your magic. You may need it again before the night is out."

She didn't know how to tell Lily that she could have lifted all of the others to the platform twice before feeling the drain on her magic, so she let her mother lift George with a simple nod of acquiescence. Sirius turned his wand on Harry, but the Minister's hand shot out and grasped at the Black Lord's arm pleadingly.

"Send me up," Fudge said, voice shaking. "I must see to—that is, the people need to know I've survived. I must find the Bulgarian Minister. We must make a statement—"

Sirius removed Fudge's clawing hand with restrained impatience. "Minister, we will send you after Harry. Surely you see that the children must go first."

"The children…" Fudge trailed off uncertainly, but looked around at his retinue and nodded quickly. "Yes—ah, that is, of course. Send her along, then, and I'll follow just after."

Harry suppressed the urge to roll her eyes at the severe distortion of priorities from which politicians appeared to suffer. She looked at her parents as Sirius' spell caught her weight and said, "I'll wait for you," before they could give her instructions to the contrary. The magic hoisted her upward on a tide of invisible power, and a moment later she was touching down on the upper ledge in a space that had been cleared for the purpose.

There were more people still in the destroyed box than Sirius would have guessed. The Bulgarian party was still there, from what she could see. They were in the midst of a furious argument—in English, no less—with Mr. Crouch and Mr. Bagman, both of who seemed to be completely at a loss as to what they were meant to be doing. Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy were standing protectively close to Draco, whose eyes locked onto hers as she looked their way. "How many more?" he asked. His voice was steady but his face held a pallor that didn't bode well for how his Occlumency was holding up under the panicked emotions of so many shocked and terrified people.

"Nine," she said. "They may need help levitating everyone up." Here she looked meaningfully at all the grown witches and wizards standing about uncertainly. "The Minister and his retinue are still down there." Mr. Crouch sprang to the ledge—or at least to a space near the ledge from which he could peer down to the party below anxiously. He was almost knocked aside as Fudge came weightlessly flying over the edge and onto the platform. The portly man clutched at his chest as he found his feet and looked around. Zeroing in on the Bulgarian party, he stumbled over and began haranguing them about international incidents and unforeseeable disasters. Crouch followed him to mitigate and the group once again dissolved into uselessness.

Harry turned from the scene with disgust. She could be useful, at the least. Ginny was sitting in one of the chairs nearby, looking collected and annoyed at her family's hovering. "Come to patch me up?" Ginny asked as Harry knelt before her. "Just a numbing spell will do until I can get—ow!"

Harry ignored the girl's startled yelp as she magically twisted the bone back into place with a deft turn of her wand. She had done it on animals a number of times and knew that the spell prevented the nerves from sending most signals during the re-setting. It hadn't hurt much, but the sensation of muscle and sinew moving without one's conscious control was unpleasant nonetheless.

"I'm gonna be sick," Ron said, averting his face from his sister as her arm twitched and shuddered under the magic's insistent nudging.

Once the arm was straightened to the spell's content, Harry set about actually Healing it. This was a much more gentle process, and Ginny's face relaxed under the warmth of the magic. Knitting the bone and surrounding tissues back together also took longer than simply setting it did, so Harry settled in for the time being.

"What's happening with the rest of the stadium?" she asked Mr. Weasley as she worked.

He shook his head slowly. "Nothing good. Ours was the only portion of the stands directly attacked, so nothing else has collapsed. People are panicking, though. I fear the security wizards will have their hands full preventing a stampede."

Harry wondered that everyone hadn't already cleared the stands, but after casting her mind back over the events since the end of the game, she realized not as much time had passed as she'd assumed. It had been the rush of action and her own hyper-awareness slowing her experience of the event. That, and there probably weren't enough exits to the stadium for any sort of expeditious exodus.

At the periphery of her awareness, she could hear Bagman attempting at last to calm the crowd. At what she suspected was the Minister's urging, he had a Sonorous Charm going full blast, saying, "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, PLEASE DO NOT PANIC. THE MATCH IS NOW OVER. THERE IS NOTHING TO FEAR. PROCEED IN AN ORDERLY FASHION TO THE NEAREST EXIT AND NO HARM WILL BEFALL—"

Bagman's platitudes were drowned out by an unearthly howl that seemed to fill each corner of the stadium. It started as a wind, whipping through her ears so intimately it set her skin crawling. The white noise fell away by degrees until she could hear words, spoken as though emanating from just over her shoulder. _What kind of spell is this?_ she wondered with unease. It was a terrible whisper of a voice, almost unrecognizable in its inhuman, echoing lisp. More terrible still were the things it said.

" _LIES_ ," the spell whispered-shouted into her ear. She couldn't help but flinch at the way it filled her mind with harsh syllables. She kept her concentration primarily focused on Ginny's healing, but she could not block out the voice entirely, and it rose and fell like an overbearing symphony in the fringes of her consciousness. "THERE IS MUCH TO FEAR. This is the advent of a new age in the Wizarding World. A WAR AGAINST THE LESSER IS BEGUN. Tonight we reclaim our world from the stain that desecrates it; we come to purge the poison that infects the weakened whole. CONSIDER THIS A WARNING. Mudbloods who leave our world will be spared. ALL WHO REMAIN SHALL BE HUNTED. True wizards associating with filth will be CLEANSED ALONGSIDE IT. Choose your side, wizards of the isle. JOIN US OR STAND ASIDE. THE DEATH EATERS DEVOUR ALL WHO STAND AGAINST THEM AND DELIVER THE SOULS OF THE UNWORTHY TO THE FIRES OF THE DARKNESS."

The message ended, but the words seemed to be stuck in Harry's mind, like the echoes of a bad dream that took too long to fade upon awakening.

"What the bloody hell was that?" Ron muttered, white-faced and shaking.

"Never mind that now," his father said firmly. "As soon as Ginny's arm is well enough to move, we are leaving this stadium. Fred, George: Ginny is your responsibility from now until we set foot inside the Burrow, understand?"

The twins gave resolute nods, the stubbornness in their chins just daring Ginny to protest. She didn't, for once, instead frowning fiercely and snapping at Harry, "Is it fixed yet?"

"Almost," she said. She wasn't about to send the girl into a volatile situation with a half-healed arm.

" _Dad_ ," Percy hissed suddenly, naked fear in his voice. Mr. Weasley whirled to look at something out of Harry's line of sight and inhaled sharply.

"Get down, all of you!" he yelled.

Harry didn't think twice about pulling Ginny down by her good arm and shoving them both into an aisle. Ginny growled as her still-tender arm was jostled and Harry reached out with her Healing magic automatically to soothe it while at the same time twisting her head as much as she was able to look for the threat. "Did you see?" she asked Ginny.

"Masked riders," Ginny panted. "Black robes. On brooms. Came from above, I think. That's all I saw before you attacked me."

"Saved you," Harry disagreed.

She flinched as something touched her head but it was soft and fluttering—it was a piece of parchment, and it was followed by a half a dozen others. What on earth…?

Ginny pushed at her and they both moved into crouches. They risked a look out at the stadium and the scene that met Harry's eyes was so surreally unexpected that it didn't immediately register as intelligible. There was indeed a swarm of black-robed figures in silver masks, and they were on brooms, but whatever she'd imagined them doing—throwing spells or curses, maybe—it didn't predict them throwing what looked like bundles of newspapers down into the stands.

The masked riders tossed the stacks of papers and then shot simple dispersing spells after them: the stacks then exploded into hundreds of leaflets that rained down harmlessly onto the crowd.

"You saved me from a paper cut," Ginny said dryly. "Thanks ever so."

Not amused by the redhead at that particular moment, Harry pulled the girl's arm toward her and Healed it as fast as she could manage safely. Faster was more uncomfortable, but she thought they were beyond such concerns at this point. Ginny hissed at the pins and needles sensation, but sighed with real relief when Harry let her go at last with a satisfied nod. Ginny tried out her arm, gingerly at first and then with more vigor as it held up to her motions.

"Thanks, Harry," the girl said, momentarily sincere. Her face relaxed into cynical lines a moment later. "Now let's get the hell out of here."

"Go with your family," she said, turning Ginny over to Fred and George's protective care. "I'll see to mine."

"Be safe," George called after her, eyeing the leaflet-tossing wizards with cold apprehension. Unburdened, the masked assailants had begun to flee up and out of the stadium into the night.

She returned the sentiment distractedly and sought out her parents. James had procured Aurors from seemingly nowhere and was taking charge of the situation unequivocally now that everyone had been retrieved from the broken portion of the box.

"Dawlish, contact HQ and tell them we need immediate backup," James barked. "Stepson, go down to the locker rooms and confiscate the players' brooms. Get Squad C airborne and after those masked wizards. Granby, find the wardsmiths on call tonight and tell them to take down the anti-Portkey wards around the grounds, then the anti-Apparition wards. People are going to want to leave quickly and we don't have enough Portkey stations standing by to make any kind of speedy evacuation."

"That's gonna take time," Granby protested. "Hours, maybe; them wards are anchored in a dozen places."

"Well, get every ward master in England on it," James snapped.

"The anti-App wards were anchored by Master Black himself!" Granby snapped back. "I'm telling you, our guys can't just unpin 'em on a whim."

Meanwhile Bagman had decided to be useful again and was announcing over the Sonorous Charm, "ALL PLAYERS REPORT TO THE TOP BOX WITH BROOMS IN HAND, BY ORDER OF THE MINISTER OF MAGIC!"

A glance over at the respective Ministers of Magic showed the pair of them utterly uninterested in any such order, being preoccupied in an argument over whose respective fault the current circumstance really was.

"Winborne, take Murphy and escort the dignitaries out of the stadium," James said when he could be heard once more. "Take them directly to the perimeter of the wards and use the emergency Portkeys to get them off the grounds."

"Why can't we take the brooms to the Portkey stations?" Fudge broke in, abruptly distracted from his political machinations.

"There aren't enough for you all," James said uncomfortably. "We need to acquisition the majority to get our men in the sky to oversee the situation and provide close air support if events escalate further."

"Just the two of us, then," Fudge spluttered, grasping his fellow minister like a lifeline.

James visibly fought a grimace and lost. "All right, Minister. If you and the Bulgarian Minister would like to wait, I can escort you to the perimeter myself by broomstick shortly."

Lily met James' eyes and smiled resolutely. "Harry and I will do just fine, Dear. We'll be waiting for you when you come home."

"I'll look out for them," Sirius added, clapping a hand on Harry's shoulder hard enough to make her stumble a bit.

James shook his head slowly. "I have a job for you, Sirius."

In a blur of crimson, the Bulgarian Seeker, Krum, touched down in what was left of the Top Box. He made straight for his minister, spurring a short and one-sided conversation in which the Bulgarian Minister gestured from Krum's broom to James and back.

Krum handed over the Firebolt XP without so much as a wince. James passed it to Sirius a moment later.

"Get to the edge of the wards and Apparate to your brother's house," James told him.

She'd never seen Sirius take a broom so gingerly. "We aren't on great terms at the moment."

"Still, he'll come if you ask him," James insisted. Harry thought he was probably right. Whatever Regulus thought of Sirius, he respected the position of Family Head unequivocally. "No one else can get the wards down fast enough," James concluded.

Sirius looked at Lily and Harry, frowning. "I don't like this. At least let me take Harry."

James shook his head staidly. "She'll slow you down. People are panicking already. Go now, Sirius."

With a final, uneasy glance at Lily and Harry, Sirius turned and leapt off the edge of the box, rocketing into the night on wings of urgent resolve.

Winborne and Murphy began herding the ministerial delegations briskly toward the door, which had been knocked partially askew during the box's splitting. The majority of those remaining who were not directly affiliated with the governmental parties nevertheless followed close behind, likely judging the Auror-escorted group to be a relatively safe option amidst the chaos. Harry had the disturbing thought that standing next to high-ranking officials in the midst of a politically motivated attack was phenomenally ill advised, but with only one exit from the box there was no choice.

She stuck near to her mother, falling into step behind the Malfoys, with the Weasleys pressing close behind them. On the metal landing outside the box, their progress was stymied. Witches and wizards were attempting to evacuate from every box along the narrow walkway, to the point that passage between their box and the nearest lift access was impossibly congested. Judging by the frustrated shouts coming from that direction, Harry wasn't sure the lifts were even functioning at this point.

She looked the other direction, toward the junction with the rickety metal stairs that wound their way back and forth around the outside of the stadium like trails in an overly ambitious ant farm. "Mum," she said, pitching her voice over the crowd with difficulty. Lily followed her gaze and grimaced, but nodded.

"We're never going to make the lifts," Lily called to those around them. "We should take the stairs."

Lady Malfoy looked unenthused by the prospect. "It's little more than scaffolding," she pointed out. Harry could barely hear her cultured voice amidst the noise. "—not designed for serious traversement."

"Unless you've got brooms up your sleeves, we've few options," Mr. Weasley said firmly. Eyeing the crush of people all pressing toward the lifts, he directed Percy and Fred, who were the furthest back, to shift sideways. "Boys, make a path to the stairs—carefully. George, keep hold of Ginny." To Lily and the Malfoys he added, "Let's keep the children to the center."

Harry was unceremoniously put between her mother and Draco, who was bracketed by his parents on the other side. Ignoring the ignominy of being treated like the bumbling ministry officials, Harry began the slow plod toward the stairs. The only thing that made their passage possible was the fact that everyone else was eager to move in the other direction. Room was made as witches and wizards wriggled forward into the space they vacated.

It wasn't until they reached the first stair and Draco nearly stumbled that Harry realized he was not holding up as well as he pretended under the overpressure of so many heightened emotions. He clutched the side railing with white knuckles and attempted to descend despite the glazed, half-focused look in his eyes that told her he was processing too much empathic data to be fully cognizant of his physical surroundings.

Without hesitation, she propped her right arm under his left elbow and steadied him. " _Focus_ ," she said, a bit sharper than she intended. Her worry gave her words an edge. "Find my emotions and forget the others."

It was a sign of the enormous pressure overloading his gift that Draco clutched blindly for her wrist with the hand that was not holding the rail, seeking the skin-to-skin contact that heightened and narrowed his empathy markedly. She knew from helping him learn to control his gift that his ability to sense a person's emotions was influenced by proximity, and that if he touched a person, his perception of outside emotions diminished to almost nothing. The trade off was that the emotions of whomever he was tuned to became hyper-magnified, easily overwhelming if not managed properly. For that reason, anchoring, as they came to call it, only helped his control if the person he touched held their emotions extremely static. Harry's Occlumency allowed her that control, and she exercised it ruthlessly as she directed Draco subtly down the stairs.

"How are you…so damn calm?" Draco hissed out between long, deliberately even breaths.

Her serenity was exaggerated as she projected complete placidity for his benefit, but even beneath her mental shields she wasn't, truthfully, too ruffled by the situation. It was the plain truth that she had been in worse circumstances than an overcrowded stairwell. To Draco, she simply said, "I am calm because I need to be."

"Why can't everyone do that, then?" Draco grumbled with annoyance. His eyes were clearer, now, and he seemed less likely to fracture into pieces any second.

Harry couldn't help the short thrum of amusement that passed through her at his words. How like her friend to resent others for their unintended effect on his empathy. No doubt he would happily require Occlumency be added to the standard Wizarding curricula if it meant he wouldn't be inconvenienced by other people's excitability.

The blond wizard let out a burst of involuntary laughter, then shuddered and glared at her. "Keep it to yourself," he snapped.

Apologetic, Harry reinforced her Occlumency more firmly, tamping down on all superfluous emotion rather than simply the tension-causing ones such as worry and paranoia. Draco's face smoothed out and he nodded at her gratefully. He stood a little straighter, no longer leaning against her for support, though his left hand didn't release her wrist as they continued downward.

They were not the only ones to think of using the stairs, and their progress slowed incrementally the closer they got to the ground. Each time they were unable to move forward, they had to fight to keep from being crushed by those behind them. Their group was forced closer and closer as they lost space to the desperate press of bodies caught up in forward momentum.

Harry recalled with disgust the single entrance to the stadium she'd passed through hours before and hoped there were those on the bottom floor with enough sense to blast alternate exits from the other ends of the stadium. Then she imagined the effect such uncontrolled efforts might have on the overall stability of the temporary magical structure and thought better of it. With any luck, Sirius would have Regulus Black on hand shortly and they could all just apparate home.

During one of the long pauses in their headway, Harry looked down over the edge of the railing to judge their progress. They were just above the tallest treetops, but in a couple of levels they would be close enough to considered jumping over the railing. The more compressed their group became on the stairway, the more she thought getting trapped in the bowels of the stadium trying to reach the main entryway would be a bad idea. People were going to get trampled or crushed unintentionally at the rate things were going.

The line of bodies moved and she turned away from the rail—but a flicker of strange light caught her periphery and she whipped her head back around with a snap. Draco let out a sharp breath and she belatedly smoothed the ripples in her emotions. He had already leaned around her to see what had alarmed her so, however, and when he, too saw the orange light past the tree line he cursed.

"The tents are on fire!" someone shouted from above them. She wondered exactly how stupid a person had to be to literally scream 'fire' in the midst of an already panicked crowd, but a moment later she had no time to care. The weight of the crowd around them became frenzied with stymied panic and Harry was knocked into Mr. Weasley's back with a grunt of surprise as Mrs. Malfoy lost her balance on the stairs behind them.

"We've got to get off these stairs," Draco said, voice tight as he attempted to brace himself next to her against the rail.

"Still too high to jump," she told him. "A hundred feet, I think."

"There has to be another way down," he said, almost to himself. He frowned at her for a long moment, and then she realized he wasn't looking at her—he was looking at her potions kit, which was unshrunken and pressed tightly to her body, cushioned from disruption only by the built-in spells that protected the vials within from jostling.

She put a protective hand on her bag, knowing where his thoughts were headed. She had told him as Rigel that her cousin Harry had been the one to develop the Modified Weightless Draught. "I don't have any modified ones…"

"But you have regular Weightless Draughts?" Draco asked, triumph lighting his expression.

She frowned, mentally calculating her current store levels. She was going to use them in an experiment over the weekend for her project with Snape, so she did have a handful of regular Weightless Draughts. "Six," she said after a moment. "Not enough for all of us."

"Enough for your family and mine," Draco pointed out. She didn't even have to say anything before he shrugged. "Just saying," he muttered.

Harry was too busy doing calculations in her head to entertain his callous suggestion that they abandon the Weasleys. "If the six heaviest of us take the potion and the rest of us use levitation charms on one another to slow our falls…"

"It'd be too uncontrolled," Draco said. "There's no way we could keep levitation charms steady while falling. And it's too dark to maintain line of sight from up here."

"What if the spell could be steadied?" she spoke aloud even as she tried to remember how many base potions she had in her bag that could be shape-imbued. At least a dozen, she was certain. "If I put a Levitation Charm in one of the neutral base potions…it won't make the drinker feather-light, but it will reverse the pull of gravity nonetheless. I just don't know if it will be too much—we might end up floating up into the sky uncontrollably."

Draco's face was a study in concentration as he tried to follow her thinking. "We could pair up—one Weightless Draught with one Levitation Charm. The anti-gravity of the Levitation Charm would be balanced by the controlled fall of the Weightless Draught. A Levitation Charm powered for one person can't lift two, even if the other one is very light. Should make for a _very_ slow fall between the two."

"In theory." She grimaced. He nodded unhappily, wincing as they were both pushed forward again as a surge came inexplicably from further up the stairs.

"I'll take theory over being crushed," Ron said from ahead of them. They looked up to see him craning his neck to see over his dad's shoulder. "I didn't catch all of that, but let's do _something_."

The others around them were looking down with mixed trepidation and determination at Harry and Draco. Lily, half-wedged between the rail and Mrs. Malfoy, gave them a grim smile. "If you've got an idea, now would be the time to try it."

Harry's hands flew into her potions kit, drawing out vials from various pockets with the ease of intimate familiarity. She passed them off to Draco and Mr. Weasley as she ran out of hands. "The Weightless Draughts go to Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy, Mum, Mr. Weasley, and the twins." She knew without a doubt that Fred and George weighed more than their older brother—where he was skinny and lanky, like Ron, the twins had the build of true Beaters, broad-shouldered and well muscled.

When she was left with five vials, held between her and Draco, she closed her eyes for the barest of seconds, her core awareness pulsing out until she'd connected a cord of her magic with each of the vials. She'd never simultaneously imbued along multiple connections before, but the amount of magic required for each vial was negligible for her, just enough to levitate one human-sized object, and since it was the same type of magic going through each one she didn't foresee any issues.

The vials lit up with the speed and force with which she imbued, molding her magic into the form of Levitation Charms and pushing it down into the inert solutions as rapidly as she dared. The entire process took her perhaps a minute, and by the time Draco had let out a surprised yelp at the heat that passed into the potions she was already taking all but one of them from him, passing three up to Percy, Ron, and Ginny.

"When we take ours, our feet are going to leave the ground," she warned them loudly. "Wait until your partner is ready to jump."

"This seems rather reckless," Mrs. Malfoy said, eyeing her vial dubiously. At Harry's patient look, she said, "It's not that I don't trust you, young lady, but this is my son's life you're asking me to risk. There is no guarantee that your… potion-Levitation Charm will last until we reach the ground."

Harry nodded. "I'll go first, then."

"No—" Draco bit off the rest of his exclamation, scowling as Harry raised her eyebrows at him. "That's stupid. Let an adult go first." Harry wondered if he was worried about losing his emotional anchor, but surely he realized that getting away from the crowd would help more than anything else.

Lily struggled to reach Harry and managed to get a hand on her shoulder after a moment. "There's no use dithering further. We will send green sparks when we reach the ground, so you know it is safe to follow." Before anyone could protest further, Lily downed her vial of Weightless Draught and pushed her way to the railing with unexpected strength. She swept her feet over the edge and made room for Harry to climb up beside her. Harry wrapped an arm tightly around her mother's waist and gulped back the hastily imbued potion without hesitation. It went to work after a moment's delay, and Harry felt gravity desert her as her mother's arms closed around her torso. Lily waited to make sure the magic keeping Harry aloft was stable, then pushed strongly against the rail.

There was an eerie moment of horizontal motion as Harry and Lily drifted out over open air, away from the stadium. Before they had gone too far toward the tree line, their bodies decelerated and they began to drop, ever so slowly, toward the ground. While normally a Weightless Draught would allow one to sink at a safe pace straight down through open air, the combination of a Weightless Draught with Harry's self-levitating form made the two of them into an awkward balloon of sorts. Their path to the ground zigzagged in a difficult to predict pattern so that, when they did touch down at last, it was much later and further from the stadium than Harry would have originally anticipated. They were almost in the forest itself when they landed, somewhat removed from the mob of people pouring out of the stadium's entrance in every direction.

Lily let go of Harry with a smile, which abruptly fell away as Harry began to float upwards again. Her mother grabbed for her arms with a choked laugh. "I suppose casting Finite won't do the trick on this either?"

Harry remembered when Lily had first attempted to spell away the blue tint to Archie's hair that resulted from one of her first experiments with shaped imbuing. She smiled back as her mother tugged her back to the earth. "Sorry, but I'll have to imbue the counter-charm. Didn't think of that."

Lily anchored Harry with a half-embrace while she fished her wand from her sleeve and shot a bevvy of green sparks into the sky toward the stadium. While her mother kept an eye on the sky, Harry awkwardly dug five additional vials of the base potion from her bag. She hesitated before imbuing them. "Is there a specific counter-spell for the Levitation Charm?" Normally one would simply stop using the charm to negate it.

Her mother frowned thoughtfully. "No reason a simple Finite Incantatem shouldn't work," she said, tentatively. "At the least, it won't hurt you."

Harry nodded and closed her eyes to focus on shaping the cancellation spell without letting the magic manifest. She hadn't done this one before, but it didn't strain her abilities noticeably. When the vials warmed with the added magic, she drank one and coughed on reflex when the world imperiously exerted its will upon her once more mid-swallow. "That was fast," she said, blinking as her muscles all began working at once to keep her upright once more.

"There's George and Ginny," Lily said, relief coloring her voice as she picked out their drifting forms against the sky.

Harry squinted in the direction she pointed. "Fred and I think Ron, too," she added. The others must have come one after the other once they'd seen the sparks. Slowly they were drifting into view out of the dark, like little boats set adrift through the sky. Mr. Weasley and Percy were close behind, and eventually all three Malfoys came into view, falling noticeably faster than the others as the combination of two Weightless Draughts worked against one Levitation Charm. Still, it was by no means a dangerous plummet; the family of three touched down a little ways short of their group, and Harry jogged over to give Draco the counter-spell potion before he could drift off again.

It took another minute or so for the first of the Weasleys to land, Ginny pushing away from her brother almost before her cancellation potion had been fully consumed. Harry was looking around for where the next pair would land when a jet of red light flew out of nowhere and caught Fred square in the chest. He and Ron were spun wildly off-course by the force of the spell—a stunner, she told herself to keep the panic at bay—and Harry lost sight of them as they were swallowed up by the night sky.

Another red jet flew toward Mr. Weasley, but Percy somehow managed to get a shield up around them both before it impacted. They landed a few moments later, breathless but intact. Harry pressed a potion to Percy, who spluttered as it kicked in and said, "Who in the blazes was shooting at us?"

"Some panicked evacuee who thought we were the masked assailants returning," Mr. Weasley said, worry keeping his voice clipped. "We've got to find your brothers. Did you see which direction they were knocked?"

Percy shook his head, but Draco spoke up. "They were diverted North-Northwest," he said. After a moment of hesitation he added, reluctantly, "Toward the tents."

Mr. Weasley's face went white, but he straightened at once, not an ounce of fear in his expression, and said, "Boys, watch your sister. Do not leave this spot."

"Dad, you haven't got a wand," George protested. "Let one of us find them."

"I'm not losing any more of you in this crowd," Mr. Weasley bit off sharply. "We've no time to argue. _Stay put_."

Harry had never heard the man more resolute. Still, she thought it folly for him to go off searching for Fred and Ron on his own. Even if he could have performed the locator charm, there was no telling what sort of trouble he might run into along the way.

"I will go," Lily said suddenly. Harry turned to look at her mother, whose voice was fierce with earnestness. When Mr. Weasley began to shake his head, Lily put a hand on his shoulder gently. "I have use of my wand, Arthur. I will find your youngest sons. Harry, stay with the Weasleys."

"I can help," she said, but her mother cut her off with a brisk hand gesture.

"You have helped enough, Harry. Hold this for me." Lily dropped a delicately engraved bracelet into Harry's open palm. It was her suppressor. When had she taken it off? The air around Lily seemed positively charged with energy. Her hair floated just a bit too far from her head to be purely windborne. She seemed to glow with an unearthly vitality as she touched Harry's head and said, "If the wards drop, use your emergency Portkey to get home. Otherwise, stay here until I return."

"I will watch over her," Mr. Weasley vowed, worry fighting with gratefulness on his face.

"You have enough children to keep safe." Mr. Malfoy stepped up and placed a hand on the back of Harry's neck. She gaped up at him like an idiot for half a second before her poise caught up to her surprised disbelief. "We will look after Miss Potter," he continued. "It is the least we can do, after she liberated us all from the stadium's confines."

Lily looked hard at the impassive pureblood for a long moment. When she nodded, it was slow and deliberate. There was acceptance in her eyes, but also a warning. Only the hint of a smile gracing Mr. Malfoy's mouth revealed his awareness of the unspoken threat.

With a last look at Harry, her mother took off in the direction Ron and Fred had been blasted. The smoke coming from the burning campgrounds had drifted in the wind, and Lily's jogging form was swallowed in hazy darkness before long.

Their group huddled together in the night air somewhat awkwardly, at first. The Weasleys were to a one pale and worried. She could easily read the helpless frustration on their faces as they waited while two of their own were potentially in danger. She could just as easily read the Malfoys' polite attempts at not noticing the Weasleys' distress. The combination was both unhelpful and painfully charged.

Finally, Draco broke the tension. "Those two are clever. They'll find somewhere safe to wait, keep an eye out for help. Ron is handy with a wand, too. They'll be all right."

Mr. Weasley nodded his thanks for Draco's words, and said, "No doubt we will all see the night out safely."

No sooner had the words been uttered than an explosion rippled through the night, far from where they stood but nevertheless alarming in its sudden appearance against the sky. It was in the direction Lily had been running, somewhere amidst the burning field of tents. The initial explosion was followed immediately by a series of bright flashes and bangs, almost in mockery of the situation's severity.

People screamed and fled into the tree line rather than attempt to skirt the spreading flames. There was little hope of anyone getting to the Portkey and Apparition points beyond the wards at this point—all such locations were on the other side of the fiery camping grounds. Harry's group pressed closer together to avoid being separated by the flood of witches and wizards rushing into the woods around them. It was several minutes before the whistles and bangs ebbed to the point that conversation was possible again.

"Some fool's firework stash caught fire, no doubt," Mr. Malfoy deduced.

"It won't be the last," his wife added. "There will be many with such piles in their tents, awaiting the end of the match celebrations."

"That's not the only thing in those tents," Ginny said, eyes bright despite the darkness. "I saw at least a few crups as we were walking around earlier, and pets aren't allowed in the stadium."

Harry grimaced, and, cruel though it was, silently hoped that crups were the worst of the casualties that would be revealed in the aftermath. With this many people in a state of fearful distress, there was a high risk of people getting trampled in the haste of others.

"Who would do something like this?" George asked, shaking his head a bit helplessly. He was visibly uncomfortable with his brothers' disappearance and seemed to be looking for a topic to distract himself.

"Radicals," Mr. Weasley said shortly.

"Anti-Muggle renegades," someone nearby added sharply. Harry couldn't see the speaker; there were a number of groups huddled close along the tree line like they were. The woods had grown quiet as the stadium slowly emptied and people settled in to wait for the wards to go down or the Aurors to gain control of the scene.

"It doesn't concern us," a witch said, her voice huffy and dismissive.

"It does when they attack an international sporting event!" someone else loudly interjected. "This is going to take _weeks_ to mop up. We don't even know how many were injured or—Merlin forbid—killed tonight."

"Purebloods, some of them, I don't doubt," Mr. Malfoy pointed out. Harry frowned upon realizing the conclusion of that train of thinking.

"You'd think they'd pick their target more carefully, if it was Muggles they're after," Draco snorted. Harry moved her eyes slowly over her friend's face, wondering what exactly he found so amusing in all of this.

"It wasn't Muggles or even Muggleborns they were after," Harry said, voice flat. Those around them grew quiet at her proclamation. "It was everyone else."

Draco frowned at her, discomfort in his expression that was probably caused by the riot of emotions she was struggling to keep contained. "That's what I mean," he said slowly. "Attacking a mixed event like this means the majority of affected aren't the ones they claim to be against. Why?"

"They're laying the foundation," Mr. Weasley said suddenly. He was looking at Harry with disturbed realization.

She nodded. "This attack was meant to scare, not actually injure or kill many people directly. That's why they dropped pamphlets. It was aimed at those who _associate_ with Muggleborns, which includes a great number of halfbloods and purebloods. Like my uncle. Like my cousin. Like me. Like you," she added, raising her chin challengingly at the Malfoys. At the unease she caught flickering through their eyes she tilted her head. "You sat in the Top Box with my mother and shook her hand, didn't you? And now you're scared, because that fleeting association might make you a target next—or at least that's the obvious conclusion these people want you to draw, isn't it? The point of tonight was to scare as many people as possible into not associating with Muggleborns. To make people retreat from those they might have spoken for out of fear for themselves."

"And when they do start attacking Muggleborns and their families, the rest of the Wizarding world will stand by and do nothing," Mr. Weasley said grimly. "It's the same tactics Grindelwald's supporters used before launching their war. First they terrified the sector of society they didn't have a grudge with, just to keep them out of the way. Then they moved to exterminate the undesirables—the Squibs, the less popular species of magical beings like hags and goblins, vampires and banshees. Those groups were unlikely to receive popular support from the wider public anyway. When they moved on to Muggleborns and eventually Muggles themselves, the magical communities of Europe were numb to the killings, too afraid for their own families to mount even a token resistance."

After a moment of stark silence, a shaky voice came from the trees behind them. "Surely you aren't suggesting this is the start of a war?"

"It's just a political demonstration gone awry," someone else said, a forced chuckle attempting to lighten the air. "Probably drunks, looking to let off a little steam."

"If these so-called Death Eaters can be believed, we'll find out soon enough, I'd wager," Mr. Weasley said darkly.

The Malfoys didn't add anything else to the conversation. Harry peered at Mr. Malfoy and couldn't help but wonder if the SOW Party had anything to do with the attack. She was tempted to think that it wasn't really Riddle's style, but then again what did she really know of the man? He was hard to predict.

It was only a short while later that Lily, Fred, and Ron emerged from the sea of choking smoke and stumbled toward them. Harry wondered why the three were hobbling so awkwardly, until she realized Ron was being towed between the other two—his Levitation Charm potion hadn't worn off yet, evidently. Harry had a dose already prepared, and in short order Ron was laughing weakly in relief as his feet met the earth.

"Thanks, Harry," he said, grimacing at her. "No offense, but your potions are kind of scary."

The gangly redhead was caught in an embrace by his father, who checked him over briskly for injuries. Fred, meanwhile, was receiving the same treatment from his twin.

George clapped his hands on Fred's cheeks and gasped in dismay. "Freddie! What've you done?"

Fred frowned, lifting a hand to his face as though to check it was still attached. "What—?"

George shucked his jumper and the thin T-shirt beneath, then began shredding it into long strips without pause. Mr. Weasley looked at Fred with alarm, but there was no obvious cause for panic, just a small, already-scabbing cut on his right temple. He sighed. "Son, there's no need to—"

"I'll save you, Freddie!" George pounced. He had three and a half strips wrapped around his twin's head like a makeshift turban before Fred managed to escape. Everyone had a good laugh as it became clear George was having them on.

Ginny punched George in the arm with a scowl. "Don't scare us like that!"

"That was not amusing," Percy said, sniffing.

"Not clever, either," Draco said, smirking. As the Weasleys looked over uncertainly, he added, "Should've had Potter heal him, unless you'd like people to be able to tell you apart now."

Twin looks of horror bled quickly to pleading as they whipped toward Harry's amused face. "I can fix it," she assured them, gesturing for Fred to unwrap his bandaged head. She held her wand mostly in her sleeve as she sealed the cut. She didn't put it past Draco to notice she was once again using 'Rigel's' wand, if he saw it up close.

As she finished, a tremble beneath their feet caused several people nearby to shriek. Harry smiled, however. "That'll be the wards going down," she said.

"Which ones?" Ron asked. "Portkey or anti-Apparition?"

"Hopefully everything but the Muggle-repellers," Mr. Weasley murmured.

"One way to know," Narcissa said, placing her hand on her son's arm. "Try your Portkey, Draco."

Draco gave them all a last look before pulling his Heir's watch from his pocket. "Safe travels," he told them, somewhat awkwardly. "Manor de Malfoy." He vanished with a pop. With a short nod at the rest of them, Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy turned on the spot and disappeared as well.

There were shouts of joy as people throughout the forest realized they could Apparate and Portkey out. Pops crackled through the trees like firecrackers as witches and wizards left in droves.

"Thank you for finding my boys," Mr. Weasley said, clasping Lily's shoulders in a brief but heartfelt exchange. "Get home safe."

"You as well," Lily said. She held out a hand for Harry to take and the last thing Harry saw as she was side-along Apparated was the Weasleys crowding around a small handkerchief.

The world re-materialized on her front lawn. Lily led the way back into the house, though the look on her face suggested she didn't expect to find James home just yet. Harry stepped into the living room to see Remus setting aside a hefty book and rising from the couch with a slight frown.

"Addy is asleep upstairs," Remus said. "What's going on? Sirius came running in an hour ago and practically jumped through the Floo, ranting about paranoid younger brothers with unplottable estates. Where's James?"

"He's fine," Lily said, distractedly glancing at the ceiling in the direction of Addy's room.

"I'll explain," Harry offered. "Go check on Addy, Mum."

Lily nodded gratefully and swept up the stairs. Harry sat and ran through the events after the Cup match with her uncle. By the time she'd finished, Lily had whipped up a pot of hot chocolate and brought mugs of it into the living room as they settled in to wait for James' and Sirius' return. Harry caught a whiff of something sharper than chocolate as her mother's mug passed her nose, but she didn't comment on it. She wasn't old enough to drink, but that didn't mean she didn't understand the appeal. In times of stress she developed an acute longing for a Calming Potion.

The long evening, warm fire, and sweet chocolate drink all conspired to make Harry drowsy. She found herself dozing off as the night wore on, and it was some time later that a noise from the Floo room drew her awake with an unpleasant lurch. She winced at the crick in her neck from where she'd laid it on her chair's arm as she rose.

James was there in the doorway, Sirius close behind him, both looking exhausted and drawn, but altogether unharmed. After hugs and health checks all around, the two men sat and related the long and short of it.

"The Ministry is wound tighter than a top over this," James said. "Only, it's for all the wrong reasons. Officials are running around babbling about press releases and international political fallout but no one is stopping to ask themselves how this happened. Security was nothing to sneeze at in that stadium. These assailants slipped in, with Merlin knows how many smuggled or stolen brooms, and they evaded every patrol and pursuit. This was not some drunken accident—it was well planned and expertly executed."

"Do we know how the camp grounds caught fire?" Harry asked. It would have been difficult for the fleeing attackers to stop and orchestrate without being caught.

"No," James said wearily. "The arson brigade is still investigating. We're lucky everyone was still in the stadium when it happened. If the fire had been later, after people got back to their tents for the night…" He didn't need to finish that train of thought.

"At least Sirius managed to find Regulus and get the wards down," Lily said. "We didn't see any major stampedes. It could have been much worse."

"They might have been down sooner, if Reggie didn't think I was roaring drunk when I found him," Sirius said, somewhat bitterly. Harry supposed showing up in nothing but trousers and body paint, pouring out words about an attack on the World Cup would make anyone cautiously skeptical—and Regulus Black's opinion of his brother was lower than most.

"No one was killed in the evacuation," James said, shaking his head. "There were incidents of near-tramplings and a few were injured in the crushing crowds, but the deaths we know of so far all occurred after the initial attack, when the stands became destabilized. The Top Box suffered the most damage, but surrounding areas were affected, as well. We found a half dozen people in the scaffolding below, either too close to the rails when they shook or the victims of falling debris from above."

Lily squeezed his arm and glanced meaningfully at Harry, who blew out a long breath. She'd known since seeing the Top Box split in two that it was unlikely no one had been seriously injured as a result. She just hadn't been dwelling on it. Now, there was nothing else to think about. People had died that night—people not so removed in time and space from where she had been. She had seen death before—in the Lower Alleys, in the Chamber of Secrets, in the Forbidden Forest—but never had it seemed so…meaningless. Those people had nothing to do with whatever statement the masked wizards or witches had been attempting to make.

Why would anyone cause such reckless suffering? It was so _thoughtless_ , so _unnecessary_. She could feel her magic stirring restlessly beneath her skin and had to fight to keep from letting her parents see how upset she was becoming. It wasn't for the reasons they would assume, and she wasn't sure she could explain properly. Words had taken a backseat to emotion, currently.

"I'm going to bed," she said, standing and collecting the mugs from the table. "I'm glad you're home safe, Dad, Uncle Sirius. See you in the morning."

Her parents hugged her one last time, both troubled but wise enough to realize she didn't want to talk at the moment. She wanted to sleep. Not to forget—she would never forget—but to regroup her mind and come to terms with all the changes that would be wrought on the world in the aftermath of that night. The battleground was shifting, and she had to decide how to move with it.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

The next morning's paper displayed an image of the stadium mid-attack, the skull-and-snake emblem an ugly stain across the sky.

 _TERROR AT THE QUIDDITCH WORLD CUP!_

 _Last night's sporting event was marred by a vicious assault on the stadium itself as masked renegades stormed the winning team's celebration and bombarded the field with inflammatory pamphlets supporting blood discrimination at its most extreme._

 _Witnesses say the assailants appeared like ghosts from the night, striking at the Minister's box and nearly causing the deaths of dozens of government officials and foreign dignitaries. Minister Fudge admits, "I barely escaped with my life." Wizarding communities across the world are outraged at this blatant terrorist attack against Magical Britain and her allies. Aurors report at least a dozen deceased as a result of this attack. The families of those brave witches and wizards are demanding answers, and so far the Ministry seems at a loss to explain how the most elaborately publicized and extensively organized event of the year was subject to such poor security practices that an unknown number of miscreants were able to wreak havoc with impunity upon innocent bystanders._

 _Also unclear is who exactly these assailants were. Was it an act of terrorism? Of war? Or just a political rebellion gone awry? All that is clear at this time is that the so-called Death Eaters are a serious new organization willing to take political views outside of the realm of politics and into the lives of ordinary citizens regardless of affiliation._

 _Ministry press releases state that in the future, alcohol sales at public events will be curtailed and all spectators subject to more thorough inspection, and in some cases searching, prior to event entry. Whether this will be enough to stop another such incident is something only time will tell._

-0—0—0

-0—0

-0

[end of chapter four].

A/N: This has been a long time coming. Sometimes, my reality overtakes the time I'd rather spend here, in the world of creation, but I am overruled. My new job is very demanding, both in time and in mental energy. It took me quite a while to find a way to balance it against my own pursuits, but I think I'm figuring it out. I apologize to everyone who waited much too long for this chapter. I thought I could finish it before my vacation in October was up, but I was wrong, and it got put on hold for much longer than I anticipated in the wake of everything else. I can't make an estimation for the next chapter, but now that I'm writing again I do plan on pushing forward. This series will never be abandoned, as it always burns in the back of my mind, but it may be slow going to be perfectly honest.

Anyone still reading has my heartfelt thanks, once again, for unearthly patience and passion for the characters. I thank everyone who works on side stories, drabbles, art, and other contributions to the Rigel Black universe in the absence of updates. You all are the real heroes of this series.

Very best,

Violet


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Here's the edited version for chapter five! Thank you to everyone whose patience was doubtlessly saint-like over the past year. Fear not, I have started on chapter six.

 **The Futile Façade**

 **Chapter 5:**

[RbRbRb]

To say that Regulus Black was having a bad week was an understatement equal to noting that the Wizarding public was perturbed by the recent events of the Quidditch World Cup. The truth was somewhat nearer to mass hysteria, and the Ministry dullards seemed keen to place the blame solely on the tournament orchestrators; Crouch and Bagman were in the political doghouse, and Regulus had rapidly spent every ounce of social capital his name afforded to avoid the same fate. _Never mind that this entire fiasco was a_ security _issue_ , he thought bitterly.

After days of official memorandums and demands of explanation, days of gratingly polite replies that he was only tasked to keep _Muggles_ out of the arena and reminders that the structure's wards weren't designed to do anything other than support the physical integrity of the stadium's foundations under normal, predictable live loads, Regulus was ready to blast his own fireplace to pieces if it meant an end to the Undersecretary's belligerent Floo calls. No one seemed to care that there was no way for him to anticipate the stadium's needing to be protected from powerful magic; even if there was, he had not been _commissioned_ to do that. His wards were crafted to repel the occasional Bludger, not shelter thousands of people from a terrorist attack.

In any case, it had been the Aurors who decided to seal so many of the stadium's exits to make security checkpoints more manageable. They assured Regulus' team that the exits would be unsealed after the match's conclusion to facilitate the ensuing exodus. Apparently, the Aurors who had been tasked with that particular function had been reassigned in the chaos of the attack. Not that anyone was laying blame at Potter's door. The Minister attributed his narrow escape to the Head Auror and looked for culpability elsewhere.

Now, after a hellish week in the black hole that was the public's disapproving eye, Regulus was summoned to Lord Riddle's side to make a report on his errant nephew. He could not imagine a subject he cared less to discuss with his lord than Rigel Black. The boy was an ambiguous piece on a game board much larger than he seemed to realize. Both sides intended to use him, but, maddeningly, he had a talent for shying just out of reach. Regulus knew Riddle looked to him to exert influence on the boy; he was in Regulus' house, and thus in his sphere of responsibility. Regulus was not under any illusions as to the Heir's susceptibility to his machinations, however. He was also nowhere near foolish enough to imagine Lord Riddle would be pleased at this state of affairs.

As he stepped into the capacious hall that served as Riddle's receiving room at his remote estate, Regulus wiped the disgruntlement from his features and cleared his mind with the ease of rote practice. He knew better than to arm Lord Riddle with the knowledge of his displeasure. He walked down the center of the room slowly, his footsteps soft on the long, silk rug that marked the straight path toward the dais.

His bow was low and respectful but unhurried. He would follow this wizard unhesitantly, but he would not trip over himself to grovel. The opulent display of candles and gilded, emerald studded throne might impress some of Riddle's underlings, but wealth was nothing to Regulus. The power that radiated from the man upon the throne, however… was a different matter.

"Rise, Regulus," Riddle said after an unnecessary increment. Regulus did not need a stiff spine to remind him where his loyalties were owed. "Tell me what has occupied young Rigel these past months."

Regulus met Riddle's eyes briefly, then flicked his gaze to the man's left ear instead. "My nephew is recently returned from abroad. His internship in the Darien Gap community was extended due to some sort of outbreak, and he returned to England yesterday."

"So he truly did have plans for the summer," Riddle mused. Regulus said nothing, as the comment was not, he thought, intended for him. He had to wonder when Rigel might have made Lord Riddle aware of his summer plans, however. As far as he knew, his nephew hadn't seen Riddle since the New Year's Gala, at which point he had not yet secured his internship. "You have not seen him yet, then?" Riddle tilted his head at Regulus, disapproval in his voice.

Regulus bit back his first response, which was to tell his lord that he'd been _extremely busy_ over the past week, certainly too busy to fabricate an excuse to visit his elder brother at their family home. His simmering temper and sharp tongue had not endeared him to Riddle in the past. Apparently only Severus brought forth Lord Riddle's amusement in that way.

"I have not," Regulus admitted evenly. "I have spoken to Lucius, however. His wife has invited Rigel to tea this Saturday afternoon. I may be able to secure an invitation—"

Riddle cut his hand in a short, horizontal movement that stilled Regulus' lips. "Don't trouble yourself, Regulus," Riddle said softly. There was a dangerous smirk tugging across Riddle's face. "I will endeavor to drop in on Lucius that afternoon and gain a first-hand appraisal of the boy. Well done."

It was faint praise, but Regulus still felt his shoulders relax without his impetus. Then he remembered the other task he had been appointed and they tightened once more. "About Heiress Potter," he began. Riddle's eyes sharpened and the smirk dropped as his lips pressed together in mild irritation. Regulus had mixed feelings about revealing this information to his lord, but he was not a liar—well, not today, at least. "She may be a bigger threat to your plans than we thought."

Riddle released an elegant sneer. "She didn't take to your advice, then?"

"Not in the least," Regulus confirmed. "She is at least as attached to Rigel as he is to her. Her influence over him is, I admit, greater than my own, and she's made it clear she brooks no attempt to separate the two."

"Arrogant girl," Riddle murmured. Regulus wasn't sure about that. Harriet Potter was stubborn, yes, and certainly spoke above her station, but Regulus didn't think she had an inflated opinion of her power in this particular situation.

When Riddle let the silence go unusually long, a dark scowl on his face, Regulus offered a rare piece of unsolicited advice to his lord. "You may consider involving Severus," he said. As Riddle's eyes locked onto his once more, Regulus silently asked his halfblood friend for his forgiveness. Severus would not thank him for what he was about to reveal. "He's been working with Heiress Potter this summer. I have no hold over the girl, but Severus… well, her goal is to become a Potions Mistress. It would be difficult to achieve with one of the most respected Masters of the field standing in her way."

The laugh that followed his suggestion was entirely pleased. "Regulus, your insight never ceases to inspire me. I have been treating this girl as I would a lion—a sharp smack to the nose and she ought to have flinched. Perhaps she requires a more serpentine approach." Riddle trailed his fingers back and forth on the arm of his chair, his face closed in thought. "Yes," he said at last. "The girl's ambition will be her downfall."

The note of finality in his voice didn't speak well for the girl's chances, but Regulus didn't pity her. He'd warned her to distance herself from his nephew, told her flat out she didn't belong in the circles he was being elevated into. That she didn't heed him was her own misfortune.

Riddle drew his hands together in a steeple. Over their tips, he said, "What of the tournament's preparations?"

Regulus was taken aback by the question. "My lord, you are…proceeding with that, in the wake of recent events?" He honestly assumed the grand scheme would be cancelled or at least postponed. The Wizarding World was up in arms over the travesty of the World Cup. It didn't seem wise to Regulus to present their indignation a large and ostentatious target.

"I'm certainly not going to write off months of work because a few masked imbeciles decided to lose their minds for an evening," Riddle said sharply.

"I only fear it may be seen as politically incendiary," Regulus said carefully. "Given the current atmosphere."

"It is incendiary in the way we need it to be," Riddle said, lowering his lids in a way that precluded further argument. "Our spectacle will refocus the community on what is important. It will look reasonable, compared to the manic fanatics at the Cup. Our legislation will be a natural extension of the point we prove. In any case, the Ministry's Department of Magical Games and Sports is now desperate for revenue to recompense the claims of property loss currently being levied against it. I couldn't stop our little show if I wanted to."

"And I suppose Messrs.' Bagman and Crouch will be so eager to see its smooth execution that your every demand will be satisfied," Regulus guessed. If he was not certain that his lord had nothing to do with the attack on the World Cup, he might wonder at the convenience. _No_ , he mentally chided himself. _Not convenience_. _Riddle simply takes every advantage the world affords him._

The seated wizard smiled, and it was edged with dark satisfaction. "Indeed, Regulus. We may be moving in Dumbledore's jurisdiction, but this time I will have complete control of how the year plays out."

[HpHpHp]

When Archie returned from the Darien Gap, it was to relieved smiles and concerned glances. Sirius especially hovered the first couple of days, scarcely letting Archie out of his sight except to sleep. When Harry and Archie were at last afforded some time alone, Archie was half-exasperated, half-saddened by the family's doting.

"It's like he didn't expect me to come back," he said, tracing invisible patterns in his green bedspread. "He keeps looking at me like he isn't sure I did come back. I haven't changed that much, have I?"

Harry knew he didn't want to hear it, but he really had changed. The Archie who came back from the Americas was solemn eyed and too mature, slower to laugh and quicker to fall silent. She knew he'd seen a great deal of suffering over the last few months, and she suspected the only reason the stress of that wasn't more visible was because of his metamorphing. Underneath the face that looked like hers, were his features wan and drawn? Were there lines across his brow, bags under his eyes? He gave off an aura of exhaustion, even if his physical form didn't reflect the underlying state. She had to smother her own concerned glances more than once, confident that he would not appreciate her worries.

"It's not just the internship," Harry reminded him. "Sirius can't forget what happened at the end of last year. He's afraid letting you go abroad just after such an experience was the wrong choice. He needs reassurance that you're healing, that so much time away, amidst tragedy and death, hasn't stunted your recovery."

Archie sighed. "I know, and I understand, but I can't pretend to be carefree and naïve just for the sake of it. I can't un-see what I saw, Harry. So much pain, so much senseless suffering. I thought I understood, after Mum, how short life can be, how quickly it can change; I didn't understand anything." His expression transitioned to something self-mocking that didn't suit her cousin at all. "I thought I was living life to the fullest, taking risks to achieve my dreams, but I haven't lived at all! I'm just cautiously creeping through the world, planning every step and every day as though I have thousands left. There aren't any guarantees, Harry."

Her eyes widened as he spoke. Was he saying… did he regret their ruse? She had always known, in the back of her mind, that it was a possibility. It wasn't something she'd planned for, however. Archie had always seemed so certain, at least as sure as she had been at every turn. "Do you—" She swallowed before continuing. "Do you want to stop? Go back to being ourselves?" Harry ignored the pang in her heart at the very thought. She carefully did not consider why it was not her potions career that flashed through her mind at the thought of abandoning their pretense, but Draco and Pansy, Rosier and Ginny, _Professor Snape_.

Archie looked at her and smiled softly. "No, Harry, I wouldn't do that."

"It's okay," she said, keeping her breathing steady by force of will alone. "It's your life, Archie, I've only borrowed it for a little while. Maybe it's time. Maybe we've gone as far as we can."

Archie took her hands and pulled her forward until his forehead touched hers. "I know you don't believe that, Harry. We aren't through yet. Anyway, I'm not saying I want to quit. I just… I want to do _more_ , Harry. I'm going to take on another specialty this year. Advanced stage disease treatment is still my passion, but I want to learn a wider, more applicable field as well. I want to help as many people as I possibly can. Our ruse has given me this opportunity, but I haven't been taking full advantage of it."

"That—" She didn't know what to say, caught between acute relief and miserable guilt that she was so happy to keep living Archie's life. "If you're sure…" she said weakly.

"I'm more certain than I've ever been," Archie said. He pulled away and began to pace the room, growing more animated as he spoke. "I want to help you with your potions research. I know there's a way to tailor your invention to the medical realm. I want to go on a long vacation, just my dad and me. I want to teach Addie how to say my name properly. I want to kiss Hermione. I want—"

"Woah," she said, startled out of her dazed state. "When did you decide that?"

"Months ago," Archie said, waving his hand distractedly. "I decided it was too risky to tell her how I felt, but I'm not afraid anymore."

Harry thought ruefully that some fear might be a good thing. Was he really planning on starting a relationship with Hermione as Harry Potter? "Don't you think you should wait a little longer to—"

"No! No more waiting for me, Harry." Archie's face was alive with the force of his declaration. "I'm going to live with no regrets." After a moment in which they stared at one another, Archie blinked and relaxed slightly, a smile tugging at one side of his mouth. "Well, maybe I'll wait until we start school again. From her letters, she seems pretty focused on her clinic work right now. Thanks for that, by the way." He scowled playfully at her, and Harry could see a bit of the old Archie still glowing inside him.

"You're welcome," Harry said primly. After a beat, she added, "She's pretty great, your girl. Mrs. Hurst sings her praises to anyone who will listen."

"She's not my girl yet," Archie said, his smile dopey in its sweetness.

"Come on, lover boy." Harry stood and looped her arm through his. "Let's go see if Sirius wants to toss the Quaffle."

Archie's face relaxed into solemnness once more, but his eyes conveyed his contentment and gratitude. She bumped him playfully with her hip. He bumped her back, and she knew they would be fine. They were still a team, and whatever storm came their way, they could weather it together.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

The Saturday after Archie returned, Rigel Black was cordially invited to Malfoy Manor for a mid-afternoon tea on the veranda. Archie gave Harry as thorough a debrief on the subject of his internship as possible, but Harry still felt underprepared to answer detailed questions about the experience. If pressed, she would intimate that she was uncomfortable talking about the suffering she'd witnessed. It felt cheap, but she was not above it.

Archie, as Harry, was spending the day at Hermione's house. She hoped he didn't do anything impulsive while there, but her cousin was nearly a grown man and could make his own decisions. She had other things to worry about, in any case. As she prepared to Floo from Grimmauld Place, she felt strangely disoriented, and not just because she dreaded using the clumsy form of magical transport. She struggled to put herself in Rigel's mindset, but the mask was harder to don this time. It was like a pair of shoes she hadn't worn in a while—like re-acclimating her feet to winter boots after a long summer in loose sandals.

She shook herself impatiently, brushing the feeling off like a physical thing. She'd already paid the Dominion Jewel a visit to see her aura repressed in preparation of resuming her role as Rigel. It really shouldn't be this difficult, after three years of practice.

 _I am Rigel Black_ , she told herself. _I am a fourteen-year-old boy in Slytherin House who has spent the summer caring for diseased tribes in the Americas. I am going to my friend's house to catch up with his family and assure them that I am whole and healthy and mentally stable._ Yes. She nodded. That would do.

She stepped through the Floo and stumbled out the other side with inevitable fanfare. She climbed to her feet from where she'd landed sprawled on the Floo room rug and rubbed absently at her elbow as she looked around. There was no house elf to greet her, this time; instead, Draco was waiting impatiently on a settee. He stood slowly as she divested herself of the last of the fireplace dust and walked toward him.

"Draco, it's good to see you." She smiled and stepped closer, intending to hug her friend, but he didn't step forward to meet her so she stopped, somewhat awkwardly close, and tilted her head slightly in confusion.

"Rigel." Draco acknowledged her with a long look, straight-faced and serious. "Good to have you back." If Rigel hadn't seen as Harry how Draco missed Rigel over the summer, she might think from his greeting that he hadn't noticed her absence at all.

"Thank you for inviting me to tea," she said, falling back on polite formality in the wake of her bemusement.

"Mother invited you," Draco reminded her, still acting odd. Almost rude, in fact.

"Where is your mother?" Rigel asked.

"She's with Father," Draco said, finally turning toward the door. "Tea will be in half an hour. They wanted us to be able to catch up, first."

"That's kind of them," Rigel murmured, following her blond friend out into the hall. He led her through the maze-like mansion, up a very long flight of stairs and down another hall until they reached a door with a magnificent dragon carved and painted in exquisite detail on its surface.

"This is my room," Draco said, somewhat unnecessarily. He pushed the door open and led her inside before closing it again with a firm click.

She took a moment to look around. Draco's room was closer to a suite, really. She could see a connecting bathroom and double doors leading to a large closet on the far wall. To the right, a handsome four-poster bed sat overflowing with covers and pillows; none of the patterns really matched, making her think Draco had accumulated them in pieces over a long period of time. In addition to the set of claw-foot dressers and bedside tables, the room was dominated by a large desk and matching hutch, which was overflowing with books and parchment. The only decorations visible were a dozen brooms that had been mounted along the walls horizontally, at varying heights. The models were all different, with some looking to be quite old—much too old to have been Draco's as a child.

"I collect them," Draco said, his cool demeanor breaking momentarily as some embarrassment crept into his tone. Leave it to the Malfoys to let their child collect hideously expensive sports relics as a hobby.

"They suit the room," Rigel offered. The brooms were the only sign of personality in an otherwise stark space. It looked like the room of a boy who had recently outgrown childish things and subsequently got rid of them, yet hadn't had time to acquire new things. Her friend made a meaningless noise that was neither agreement nor disagreement. She sighed and said, "What's wrong, Dray?"

He scowled at her. "You really have to ask?"

"I'm not being deliberately obtuse, if that's what you're asking," Rigel said, her voice a bit dry. She wished Draco would just come out with whatever was bothering him. She couldn't fix it if she didn't know.

Draco's expression was both annoyed and incredulous. "You told your cousin about my empathy."

"I did," she said, blinking. "I tell Harry everything. You know that."

"So every secret I tell you is going to be passed along without consulting me," Draco bit out.

She hesitated. The answer was 'yes, absolutely,' but she knew that wasn't what her friend wanted to hear. She couldn't help that Rigel and Harry were the same person and she couldn't explain to Draco that there was no 'telling' involved at all. She supposed she could pretend as Harry to not know things about Draco, but wasn't that more dishonest?

He must have seen the answer in her eyes—or perhaps felt it from her emotions—because he growled and actually reached out to shake her by the shoulders, as though the movement might facilitate her understanding. "Rigel, I trusted you. Don't you understand why I'm upset?"

She nodded slowly, but still said, "If you trust me, you trust who I trust. You trust Harry."

"That's not how secrets _work_ , Rigel." The blond threw his hands up in exasperation. Rigel allowed herself a small smile when he wasn't looking. If Draco was resorting to such dramatics, he wasn't really all that angry. She suspected he just wanted her to apologize.

Instead, a contrary instinct told her to needle him further. "Don't you tell Pansy everything you find out about my secrets?"

"That's different!" Draco had his theatrical outrage on a roll. "Pansy is friends with you, too."

"You could be friends with Harry," she suggested, only realizing after she said it that she was half-serious. Oh, the longing that simple idea invoked. Impossible, of course, but a worthy fantasy. "Here," she said after a moment of allowing him to glower at her unhappily. "I'm sorry I told Harry without consulting you. I should have at least warned you that she knew, so that you weren't surprised. I had hoped it wouldn't come up, honestly, but the World Cup is a madhouse. Since I couldn't be there, I wanted someone who could help to be nearby. Harry's Occlumency is almost as good as mine." The guilt that rose at the lie didn't even faze her. She had long become accustomed to the gnawing feeling in her stomach.

Draco's expression softened, then hardened again in suspicion. Draco was smart like that. "Which is it, Rigel; you would tell Miss Potter my secrets regardless or you did it for my own good?"

"Both." She smiled faintly at him.

"Then we're back to where we started." Draco rolled his eyes.

"You're mad at me again?" she clarified. Summoning a serious expression, she said, "I'm sorry, Draco."

"Sorry you betrayed me or sorry I'm mad at you?" Draco asked. When Rigel began to smile again he cut her off with a glare. "Don't say 'both.'" She closed her mouth but kept her smile. Draco scowled at her lack of repentance. "Why is it so difficult to stay mad at you? I used to be very good at being cross, but you drain it right out of me."

Rigel recalled an evening studying for a Transfiguration exam in which Draco had snarled at Theo for breathing through his mouth too loudly. Somehow she didn't think Draco had lost his ability to be annoyed.

Her friend's mouth twisted into a dissatisfied moue. "And the worst part is I know you haven't agreed to change the thing that upset me in the first place. Somehow I always just end up going along with it."

"Maybe it doesn't bother you as much as you thought," she suggested, not entirely helpful.

Surprisingly, Draco huffed an agreeing laugh. "Could be. Your cousin wasn't actually too overbearing about it. The worst part was explaining to Father how Potter knew." His silver eyes took on a worried sheen. "I told my parents it came up at your dad's birthday party, but I don't think they believed me."

Rigel winced inwardly. Draco had covered for her, to preserve Rigel's standing in the Malfoys' eyes at the expense of seeming indiscreet. She did not deserve such friends. That much had always been clear, but it had never ached so much.

She knew a more heartfelt apology was warranted, but before she could say anything a discreet pop signaled the arrival of a house elf. Not Dobby, who she recalled had been relieved of service to the Malfoys last summer as Draco's empathy asserted itself in the form of a sympathetic madness.

Instead, an older house elf with venerably long ears bowed briefly and said, "Tea is being served on the terrace, Young Sir."

Draco raised an eyebrow that was almost Snape-like in its dismissive annoyance. "Already?"

The house elf bowed again, blinking slowly as though to communicate that no additional words were necessary.

"Right." Draco shooed the servant into disappearing and grimaced apologetically at Rigel. "We'd better go directly."

Rigel didn't like to leave things unsaid between them. She supposed there would be time after tea to repair their friendship properly, though.

She followed him through the convoluted corridors, wondering vaguely whether Malfoy Manor had been designed to purposely drive invaders insane. They certainly were not taking the same path that they had coming to her friend's room earlier. It was only upon nearing the doors to the Manor's spacious lawn that she began to recognize her surroundings somewhat.

The terrace stone gleamed with a fresh polish as they stepped out into the late summer sun. While previously Rigel had only seen the veranda open and empty, it now featured a charming wicker and glass table shaded by an assortment of large silk cloths that had been artfully charmed to undulate above the seating in overlapping waves. Stepping nearer, she realized the spelled silk would also produce a gentle breeze as it moved over the heads of those at the table. Very clever.

Her appreciation for the arrangement took a sharp dive when she realized just who was sitting at the table. Her eyes skipped over the two Malfoys and locked with ominous incredulity on a coal-black head of neatly arranged hair. The man beneath it looked up and predatory blue eyes met her own Polyjuiced grey. It took every steel nerve she possessed to keep walking calming toward the group. By the time they reached the table, her face betrayed nothing of the inner unpleasantness that was churning her stomach.

This was the man indirectly responsibly for Pettigrew's presence at the castle last year. The man who'd set the search for the Dominion Jewel into motion, if the words of a deranged kidnapper could be believed. She did believe it, though. A savage sort of satisfaction went through her at the thought that she had foiled him. The Dominion Jewel was now beyond the reach of physical reality. Pettigrew was dead. She hoped Mr. Malfoy had indeed delivered her little message to Riddle at the end of term. She would have paid several galleons to have been there when it was delivered.

As Mrs. Malfoy rose to greet her, the two men rose from their seats as well. Mr. Malfoy was a mask of cool pleasantness. Riddle simply looked satisfied. _He thinks he has me right where he wants me_ , she thought, allowing a caustic thrum to rush through her. _Someone really ought to take him down a peg._

From the corner of her eye, she could see Draco's head turning slowly to regard her, a frown pinching his brow into confusion. She tamped down on her emotion belatedly. She hadn't meant to reveal to her friend how much she disliked the unexpected addition to their tea party. Thankfully, Draco was distracted when he noticed the tarts piled on the center of the table. They were blueberry. He sent his mother an absolutely betrayed expression, which she countered with a quelling look of her own before turning her attention to Rigel.

"Welcome home, Rigel," Mrs. Malfoy said, coming forward to lightly embrace her around the shoulders. The warmth in her smile belied the gentle courtesy. "We are very glad to have you, and fortunate that Lord Riddle happened to drop by on some business for Lucius just as the table was being set."

She would bet her favorite cauldron that it hadn't been a coincidence. Rigel summoned her manners like a blanket to cover the icy irritation that Riddle's presence had stirred up. She smiled back at Narcissa with the strength of genuine regard. "I have not truly returned to England until this moment, my Lady. Thank you for your kind invitation."

"Nothing like a civilized gathering to wash away the ignoble remnants of foreign barbarism," Mr. Malfoy said. The slight ironic tilt to his mouth was the only thing that saved his comment from indecorous xenophobia.

"The world is vast and varied," Rigel said, hoping that sounded appropriately seasoned. Having never traveled much herself, she had no clue what other civilizations were like. She was not entirely convinced that an English tea service was the pinnacle of all human society, however. It seemed statistically convenient.

"Indeed," Riddle put in, holding a hand toward her imperiously. "You simply must regale us with tales of the Central American natives."

She reciprocated the gesture slowly. Handshakes were not terribly common in pureblooded customs, particularly after initial introductions had already been made. As her palm made contact with his, she had to clench her stomach against a sudden disquieting sensation. Her eyes widened as she recognized the feeling of magical core resonance. She clamped her throat against reflexive bile and broke the handshake quickly.

What in Merlin's name was that? There was absolutely no reason for her magic to resonate with Riddle's. Resonance only happened when sufficiently identical magical cores came into contact. She had never heard of it happening between two different people. The disgust she felt at the thought that her magic could be at all similar to Riddle's colored her words when she said, belatedly, "It wasn't all that interesting. I spent most of my time in sickrooms, not integrating with the tribes much at all."

"Draco mentioned some kind of quarantine," Mrs. Malfoy said sympathetically as they all claimed seats around the table. Rigel sat next to Draco, across from his parents with Riddle at the head of the table. "It must have been a very trying summer for you."

"I like to keep busy," Rigel said, bringing a small smile to her face. "Helping people is satisfying, and I learned a lot. Not a bad way to spend a few months. I didn't have anything better to do, in any case."

Riddle's expression was blank, but she could see the annoyance in his eyes when she blithely referred to his offer to 'train' her in magic as not worth considering. It wasn't as though she needed it, after all. The disaster of a few months ago had at least forced the confrontation with her magic to a head.

"That charitable attitude will serve you well as Head of House Black one day," Mr. Malfoy said approvingly.

"My cousin mentioned your own recent contributions to charity," Harry said politely. "House Black will be hard put to match the generosity of House Malfoy."

"Miss Potter is an interesting young woman," Mr. Malfoy observed. "Our interactions with her at the World Cup were… memorable."

"You look so much like her," Narcissa added, her eyes roving over Rigel's face almost incredulously before turning back to the tea service as she poured for all five of them.

She had expected this, and so her affected embarrassment was entirely practiced. "I can't really help it," she said, rueful sheepishness in every syllable. "My father thinks it's unconscious. I just end up looking like Harry, no matter what I do. It starts to drift if we don't see one another for a while, but then it accelerates once we are together again."

"That's why you always look so weird after you go home for winter or summer break!" Draco said, looking vindicated even as he doctored his tea with sugar. "Pansy and I thought you had highly irregular growth spurts."

Rigel laughed. "I'm just grateful my cousin isn't too feminine-looking."

"That's unkind," Mrs. Malfoy chided. She did not disagree, however.

Draco appeared to have just had a realization. "So this… isn't what you really look like?"

Rigel pretended to think about it unconcernedly for a moment as she took her first sip of the tea. It was black but laced with a subtle citrus, and not noticeably poisoned, which was always reassuring. "I suppose it's not what my genetics would project. I can't change it, though, so in effect this is my real appearance…for now, in any case." She diverted the subject before anyone could dig any deeper into her supposed-metamorphism. "I'm sorry to hear about the difficulties you encountered at the end of the World Cup match. The way Harry describes it, everything unfolded quite abruptly into chaos."

She could still recall the panicked energy of the crowd as it surged around her and the horrified fascination that bloomed at the sight of that snake-eating skull. She did her best to portray a clinical concern, however; as though she'd only heard the story second-hand.

"It was a shocking turn of events," Mrs. Malfoy agreed, shuddering delicately.

"An unforgivable lapse in security," Mr. Malfoy added, not seeming to notice the implied insult toward Lord Potter. "The more so as those responsible have yet to be apprehended."

"It is only a matter of time," Riddle asserted. "The miscreants will attempt another scene and tip their hand."

"Let us hope they are stopped before it comes to that," Mrs. Malfoy said, her voice a tad uneasy. Her gaze strayed to Draco and Rigel knew she was remembering how badly he'd been affected by the chaos and terror of that night.

"In the meantime, let us hope the country backs away from the edge of collective hysteria its been teetering toward," Mr. Malfoy drawled. "The _Prophet_ is utterly out of control, printing sensationalist eyewitness accounts and wild speculation into the motives of those madmen."

"I suppose the Ministry is under a lot of pressure to do something about it," Rigel said. Her father certainly looked a lot more stressed when he came home from work these days.

"There's talk of legislation banning group protests," Mr. Malfoy said. He seemed amused, and Rigel supposed that was because a ban on protests was unlikely to have much effect on the group who made shambles of the World Cup. Likely the only result would be a decrease in people protesting the Ministry.

"That's convenient," Draco said, likely thinking the same thing.

"What is _not_ convenient is the rash of anti-pureblood sentiment cropping up all over the place," Mr. Malfoy complained. "Our agendas are becoming associated with these anti-Muggle radicals and our legislative efforts have been blocked across the board since the incident. A total standstill on half a dozen projects, with no foreseeable compromise until these ruffians are brought to justice."

Riddle gave Mr. Malfoy a quelling look. "Mere reactionary nonsense," he assured the other man. "It is a question of narrative, and we shall give them a new one, won't we, Lucius?"

Mr. Malfoy inclined his head in acknowledgement. "The public will be distracted soon enough. Are the plans going forward, then?"

Rigel exchanged a look with Draco, but her friend seemed equally out of the loop. Were they talking about pushing legislation forward? They'd just admitted to being stymied in that area, so it must be something else. Whatever Riddle had planned would have to be pretty sensational to distract people from the historical catastrophe that the World Cup had been.

Mrs. Malfoy caught Rigel and Draco's questioning expressions and smiled. "You'll find out soon enough, boys."

"What does that mean, Mother?" Draco asked, eyes narrowing. "Why not just tell us now, if that is true?"

"And ruin the surprise?" Mr. Malfoy smirked. "Just you wait, Draco. It's going to be a very interesting year for you."

Rigel was getting a bad feeling in her stomach again. Riddle had promised. He had assured her that he would stop involving Hogwarts in his schemes. Surely she was misunderstanding, and he could not be planning something like that _again_. "I for one have had enough interesting years at Hogwarts," Rigel said, somewhat pointedly. "A quiet year would be nice, for once."

"No doubt," Riddle said smoothly. "A shame events are not always in our control. The Ministry as a whole has been organizing this year's upcoming entertainment for some time. Our allies are merely going to take advantage of the distraction to highlight some of the more convincing aspects of our party's platforms."

She didn't believe that anymore than she believed the smile on his face. Riddle was behind whatever it was. He was using the Ministry as a shield to get around their agreement. There was nothing she could do, she realized, except watch and wait and, if the necessity arose, attempt to undermine the man's plans once more. So she pasted an encouraging expression on her face and said, "Good luck with your endeavors this year, then. The SOW Party could use a bit of good press, I'm sure."

Mrs. Malfoy shot her an alarmed look, and Mr. Malfoy blinked at her in slow disbelief. Riddle merely smiled at her, though it no longer reached his eyes. "With Rigel Black supporting us, I'm sure our goals will be met posthaste."

Narcissa swiftly took control of the conversation, inquiring as to Draco's plans for his Dueling Club in the coming year. Rigel sipped her tea as her friend outlined the curriculum he'd come up with over the summer months. She lost the thread of discussion as her mind chased down various suspicions and theories about whatever it was Riddle and the SOW Party had in store for them. It was infuriating that Riddle thought himself so secure as to taunt her with the knowledge of a plot she could not prevent. He was looking for a reaction from her—why else come here, why even bring it up in front of her? He wanted something from her, and until she knew what that was she risked playing into his hands unknowing.

She would ask James, she decided. If the Ministry itself was truly involved in whatever it was, other people would know about it. The Auror Department was likely to be included in planning any large-scale event, particularly in light of the recent security incident on everyone's mind. She would not rise to Riddle's bait and press him for information—she had far more trustworthy sources.

She was drawn back into socializing when Draco asked if she minded his making Pansy the Dueling Club's deputy manager. She assured him that Pansy would make an excellent assistant coach. "You know I don't have the integrity for teaching," she added, joking.

"I wouldn't have imagined such a vice in you," Narcissa protested, smiling. She clearly expected a jest.

"Oh Rigel always cheats," Draco said, giving his mother a resigned look. "That's why he gets paired with Edmund so often—he doesn't mind being dumped in the dirt."

Rigel smiled winningly. "He shouldn't get so close to me. I can't help it if he's clumsy with his feet."

"It is amazing how many people become clumsy when _your_ feet get too close to _theirs_ ," Draco said, shaking his head in mock censure.

"I just like to keep people on their toes," Rigel protested.

"Or _off_ them," Draco shot back.

She couldn't deny that, so she merely sipped her tea again while the others laughed politely. The rest of the tea service proceeded surprisingly smoothly. Riddle kept his comments to neutral, non-provoking observations. Draco even deigned to eat one of the abominable non-strawberry tarts. When all the tea had been consumed, compliments were exchanged and the group rose to part ways.

"We look forward to hosting you again soon, Rigel," Narcissa said, resting one hand on Rigel's shoulder in a fond gesture.

"The anticipation is mine, Lady Malfoy." Rigel bowed briefly to Mr. Malfoy and nodded to Riddle somewhat stiffly. "Thank you for the scintillating conversation today, gentlemen. I am honored by the tolerance extended to an impertinent young man like myself."

"Enjoy the upcoming term," Mr. Malfoy said, a mysterious smirk coloring his words once more.

"Perhaps we shall encounter one another again soon," Mr. Riddle added. His polite expression was distant, but that didn't stop Rigel from getting the impression that his words were a promise. Or perhaps a warning.

"I'll walk Rigel to the Floo," Draco said, subtly tugging on Rigel's robe sleeve until she tore her gaze from Riddle's mockingly blank face and followed him back inside.

They walked for a few moments before Draco turned his head and frowned openly at her. "You really don't like Lord Riddle."

"I detest him," she said flatly. Draco had probably guessed as much already from what his empathy would be telling him.

"You shouldn't make it so clear," the blond boy admonished. "He is dangerous, no matter what you think of him personally."

"He already knows what I think of him," Rigel admitted. "Pretending won't make him less dangerous."

"I'm getting this 'don't stand too close to Rigel' instinct," Draco said, looking unnerved. "I hope you know what you're doing."

She didn't really. But she would as soon as she figured out what Riddle was up to. "Don't worry, Draco. I'm always careful."

"And yet it never does you any good," Draco muttered.

Rigel didn't disagree. He was almost depressingly correct. Despite the trouble she'd run into over the years, however, she had learned. She had grown. She was smarter, stronger, and no longer the naïve girl whose only wish was to study potions under Master Snape. She would not be controlled any longer by those who thought they could take advantage of her inexperience and youth. If Riddle sought to test her this year, he would be unprepared for the results.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

The last days of summer passed too quickly. She had a dozen projects she wanted to finish before the train in September and not enough time left to please her. One task she made plenty of time for was the potion lessons she'd promised Leo for the Rogue's children.

After a couple of questions it was clear that the children knew almost nothing about potions beyond the names of the most common ones available for purchase at the average apothecary. She asked Rispah to organize a three-class series the second week in August and when nearly all of the children who'd attended the first class showed up at the third, she considered the program a tentative success.

They met in the courtyard at the Phoenix, Harry standing against one of the walls with a table of vials, each unlabeled and containing a sample of various good-to-know potions. The children sat on little stools in a semicircle facing her and each had been given a small chalkboard and a piece of chalk. Since this was their final lesson, they were playing a game.

Harry passed the vials around, each labeled one through eight, and the children took it in turns inspecting each vial and writing down which they thought was which. She collected the vials once more and then lined them up on the table so the labels were easy to see.

"Who thinks they know what number one is?" Harry asked.

Margo, easily her most eager student, raised her hand high. When Harry pointed to her, the curly haired girl said, "Cough syrup!"

"That's right," Harry said, smiling a little. It was actually Wheezer's Relief, but she wasn't wrong. "How did you know?"

"I remembered you said it was thick 'cause of the honey but red 'cause of the clover." Margo beamed.

"Very good." Harry pointed to the next one. "Who knows what this one is? Jason?"

Jason bit his lip but picked his head up bravely from where he was staring at his chalkboard and guessed. "Is it poison?"

Henry laughed loudly, but a look from Harry turned his laugh into a cough. She turned back to Jason. "Why do you think it's poison?"

"The cork is all shiny. You said the extra shiny corks are to make extra sure nothing gets out as shouldn't." Jason did not sound very sure of this, but his big hopeful eyes were devastatingly entreating.

"I did say that, good memory," Harry said. "A tightly sealed cork is a good clue. There's one other type of potion that people put really tight corks on, though. Do you remember?"

Jason shook his head sadly. Henry was quick to laugh again. Harry raised an eyebrow at the boy. He'd been the most restless student in her class, and even now his feet bounced impatiently against the dirt and his fingers drummed on his chalkboard. At her look, Henry stopped bouncing for a moment and said, "The expensive ones, right? Nobody wants to spill a potion that costs a galleon a drop!"

Harry nodded. "Exactly. This is Dreamless Sleep. In a way, Jason was right, too. Dreamless Sleep can be very bad for you if you take it too much. It is also very expensive, so for both those reasons it is usually tightly sealed. Also, you can tell it's Dreamless Sleep by the way it shimmers when you hold it up to the light, see? Very few potions will make a rainbow like that when the light goes through it."

She walked them through the rest of the potions slowly. They surprised her with the amount of information they remembered from just a couple of classes earlier in the week. Children could absorb knowledge at an astonishing rate. She thought it was a shame that formal schooling didn't start until eleven for most Wizarding children, and not at all for some, like those in her class. The tutoring system just wasn't enough, especially at the rates some charged for their services.

Harry and Archie had Remus, of course. He'd tutored them in most of their informal childhood education. Lily had taught her to read, but Remus had taught her History, Maths, Social Organization, and, of course, had introduced her to Potions. These kids didn't have a Remus. Maybe they should.

Leo walked into the courtyard just as they were finishing up for the day. He was met with a chorus of 'King Leo!' and 'Your Highness!' by the excitable class. Leo looked around with exaggerated surprise and planted his hands on his hips. "What is this?" he demanded. "A coup!?"

"Noo!" Cora laughed so hard she rocked back on her stool.

"We're in class, silly," Margo told him, giggling behind one hand.

"Well, if that was true, then you could tell me what you learned," Leo said, grinning down at them.

"Go on." Harry laughed. "Tell Leo your three-Cs."

"There are seven seas, Harry." Leo shook his head in exaggerated despair. "Honestly, what are you teaching them?"

Jason came to her defense at once. "The three Checking Cs!" he exclaimed. "The three things you have to check to figure out what potion it is."

"And what are the three Cs?" Leo asked.

"Color, consistency, and cork!" the children chorused perfectly.

"And what do you never, ever do with a potion you don't recognize?" Harry prompted.

"Smell it!"

"Touch it!"

"Taste it!"

"You all pass," Harry declared. "Good work, everyone. This is our last class for the summer, so I'll see you all in the winter, ok?"

The children cheered and scrambled toward the kitchen door. Leo snagged Cora's collar as she passed and held her behind. She pouted briefly, but managed to clasp her hands in a semblance of patience as Leo said, "Any word from the Ministry?"

Cora scowled. "They aren't gonna pay. Seil says the Games and Sports people says they only have to pay for the guests' stuff. Since we didn't have tickets to the match, our caravan doesn't matter!"

Leo nodded. "All right. I thought they might say that. Tell Seil to come by the Phoenix this week and the Rogue will give the troupe enough to buy a new caravan."

"Really?" Cora's green eyes lit up in her small face. "Thank you, Highness!"

Leo held up a hand. "It comes with a condition. Seil's troupe will pay double taxes starting next year and continuing until the cost is paid back."

"Okay! I'll go tell him right now!" Cora saluted Leo sharply and ran into the kitchen with a wide smile.

Harry waited until the girl had disappeared inside before asking, "Did her caravan burn in the fire?"

"And everything they owned inside it," Leo said. His face was shadowed as he shook his head in disgust. "The Ministry is trying everything they can to get out of paying reparations for the personal property damaged or lost in the World Cup fiasco. The Department of Magical Games and Sports is nearly bankrupt, and the slew of sponsors pulling their support in the wake of public outrage isn't helping. They can't even afford to refund the tickets they sold, much less replace all that was consumed by the flames."

"So the Rogue is helping out?" Harry smiled. "That's nice of you."

"It's only a no-interest loan," Leo said, shrugging. "We can afford to do that much. The tournament this summer was more successful than we hoped. A lot of the proceeds have been invested into projects to see us through the winter comfortably, but there's enough coin left over for unexpected trouble."

Harry nodded, thinking it was lucky that the Rogue had organized the tournament when they did. Leo's position would be doubly secure, having demonstrated his ability to defend the Lower Alleys both physically and economically in times of hardship. He really did make a good king, for all that it seemed absurd for a young man of his years to take on such a title.

Harry returned the potion samples to her kit and Leo helped her carry the table back through the kitchen and into the Phoenix's main dining area. Solom was at her elbow with a glass of cold milk in his hand before she'd even brushed the dust from her hands.

Leo looked pityingly at her as he accepted a mug of ale from the old innkeeper and sat down to kick up his heels on the bench. "When will you let your hair down, lass? Everyone around here knows your secret, after the tournament. You could relax for once."

"I am very relaxed," Harry assured him, taking the seat across from him. She rested her chin on one hand in pointedly languid repose and drank deep from her cup with the other. "And everyone only knows I'm a girl now. They don't know who I am, who my family is. Or do you think no one would care that my father is the man responsible for the periodic raids on their homes and businesses? I'd be branded a spy, and your job security would probably take a hit just for associating with me."

Leo winced. "That may be overstating it."

"Not by much." Harry smiled. "Besides, I don't need that stuff to unwind."

"How do you know if you've never tried it?" Leo asked, teasing again. "Maybe you've never truly unwound in your life."

"Most mechanisms intended to be wound work best when they _are_ ," Harry pointed out.

"But not too tight." Leo countered.

Harry shrugged. "Depends on how much pressure the spring in question can withstand, I suppose. It would surely take an inordinate amount of tension to wind a thing too far."

"If anyone could…" Leo held up a hand to ward off the drops of milk she flicked his way. "All right! Sorry, Princess. I'll leave you to your milk."

"You can't fool me, anyway," Harry said. "I know you only drink ale to look more mature to your constituents. Once I caught you switching your glass for Marek's empty one when he wasn't looking."

Leo's eyebrows rose. "Did you now? It seems I am the one who shouldn't relax around you."

"You can never relax," she said, grimacing apologetically. "But then, you signed up for that." Leo toasted her words silently. Changing the subject, she asked, "Have you had any luck tracking down the man I told you about the night of the finals?"

Leo put his cup down and leaned across the table to speak more quietly. "Not luck as such. Marek's been investigating relentlessly. He's like a dog with a bone, convinced that everything is connected to Scar."

"Did you manage to peg him for drugging you?" Harry frowned, remembering her friend fighting for his life in such a state.

"No proof," Leo said. "One of the lads hired for serving in the dueler's pavilion was gone by the end of the match, but his references turned out to be falsified. Scar hasn't surfaced at all since the match, though that doesn't stop Marek looking."

Harry nodded, falling into a pensive silence as she swirled the dregs of milk around the bottom of her cup. The lower alleys had had their share of difficulties in the last couple of years. Claw. Scar. The masked man recruiting fighters. Was it fanciful to imagine that it could all be connected? Perhaps. Would it be worse if it turned out the events were connected, and they missed it? Assuredly.

"I could ask my father to look into—"

"Please don't." Leo's gaze was understanding, but firm. "Any Auror-types poking around down here is more likely to cause us trouble than our enemies."

Harry allowed the matter to drop. It didn't mean she couldn't keep her ear to the ground, though. If she had developed one thing over the last three years, it was an instinct for secrets.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

Her evening dueling lessons with Remus had taken a rather intense turn after he'd learned of her participation in the Rogue's tournament. When Sirius deigned to join them, Remus stuck with the usual formal style, though he ramped up both the speed and intensity at which he cast. On the evenings it was just the two of them, however, Remus revealed just how many tricks he'd been holding back. Those nights, Harry didn't leave his flat feeling anything less than pummeled.

After the World Cup, however, the lessons changed again. Harry was in the kitchen at Potter's Place one evening, filling up her water bottle, when her mother came downstairs dressed in the lightweight shirt and shorts she normally reserved for gardening. "Harry," Lily said, smiling a bit awkwardly. "Would it be all right if I come to your lesson with Remus tonight? I've been thinking that it would behoove me to get back into shape, if you don't mind making room for me."

Harry blinked in surprise, but nodded. "Of course, Mum. It'll be fun."

They Flooed through to Remus' condo and descended the stairs to the basement. In the home gym they found not only Remus but Sirius and Archie too. Archie laughed at Harry and Lily's surprised looks. "We had the same idea, Aunt Lily," her cousin said. Harry wondered if hearing about what had happened at the Cup had inspired Archie as well, or if it was the fear of Hermione learning that Harry had participated in a tournament that summer. Either way, she was glad of it. The world was not as safe as many people assumed, and Harry knew that better than most.

Remus smiled broadly at them all and said, "Ready to warm up?"

Harry thought she was the only one who looked appropriately wary at the sandy-haired man's smile turned anticipatory. "Weights or no weights?" she asked. Lately they had been focusing a lot on speed and agility, and Harry almost always had to duel with weighted boots and gauntlets. Remus claimed she would be able to dance out of the way of spells once she took them off, but Harry had been too exhausted by his regimen to test his word.

"Let's start with bodyweight exercises, and see how our new charges do," Remus said. So that was his game. Harry now doubted whether they'd get to duel at all. She vividly remembered her first encounter with what Remus considered an adequate starting point. "Harry, you lead. I'll watch everyone's form."

She nodded and took a spot on the edge of the clear space in Remus' basement that they used for practice matches. Lily, Archie, and Sirius made a line in the rest of the space and looked at her expectantly. Harry dropped into a push-up position gamely and turned her head to make sure everyone was ready before lowering her elbows to right angles and rising again. "One." She kept the pace slow and steady, focusing on form more than speed. On "Twenty" she turned her head and grinned to see Archie lying on the ground with his chin in his hand, grimacing at her. Lily was still pushing, though her arms shook with the effort, and Sirius… was doing one-handed pushups. "Show off," Harry said.

"Finish up, Harry," Remus said, shaking his head slightly. "Lily, that's enough for tonight. Try to do as many as you can once a day until you can do at least forty. Archie… did you just stop because you were tired?"

"And my arms hurt," Archie said, blinking. "Was I supposed to keep going after it hurt?"

"Generally, yes," Remus said, smiling slightly. "It's supposed to be uncomfortable. If you ever get to the point that it isn't hard, you're probably ready to move on to something else."

"Hmm, this isn't going to be like Quidditch, is it?" Archie looked resigned, but not too disheartened.

"Don't tell me you never did this sort of thing while you were on the House team," Sirius said, laughing at his son. "I know James did while we were in school. Team workouts can't have changed that much."

"That was ages ago," Archie said, waving a hand dismissively. "I'm sure it'll come back to me. What's next?"

"Squats," Harry and Remus said together. They exchanged an amused look. In a way it was heartening to see the level at which Archie performed and realize how far she'd progressed. Now they just had to get the others there.

After thirty minutes of mildly grueling warm-up work, Remus split their group. "Lily with Sirius. Work on getting back into the rhythm, Lily. Harry and Archie, you're against me."

Harry went to the equipment racks and put on her weighted boots and belts. When Archie cocked his head questioningly at her, she shook hers. "You won't need one yet."

"You won't need a wand, either," Remus said cheerfully. "We're dodging today."

Harry suppressed a groan. If she never got hit with another stinging hex, it would be too soon.

"Is this going to hurt?" Archie asked, eyeing Harry's slumped shoulders apprehensively.

"Only if you're slow," Remus said.

"Why do you do this again, Harry?" Archie shot her a puzzled glance. "It isn't fun at all."

"Oh I don't know," Harry said, pretending to think about it. "Remus seems to have fun."

"This is punishment for spending the summer in the Americas, isn't it?" Archie sighed as he faced off next to Harry against their uncle's wand.

"Think of it as a reward for a lifetime of indolence," Harry suggested, shifting her weight to her toes and widening her stance.

"A lifetime? I'm fourteen!" Archie protested.

"Pay attention!" Remus barked. Two stinging hexes left his wand and there was no more time for banter.

When they wrapped up for the night, sweaty and, in Harry and Archie's case, nursing a number of tender spots, the two cousins exchanged a wordless glance and deliberately hung back while Lily headed for the stairs. "I'll meet you at Grimmauld Place for dinner," Harry told her mother. "Got to ask Remus something real quick."

Lily smiled tiredly and thanked Remus and Sirius before Flooing home, presumably to shower and change for supper. As Sirius finished stretching and made his own move toward the stairs, Archie cleared his throat and said, "Dad, could we, ah, talk to you too for a moment?"

Sirius raised his eyebrows and looked curiously at Remus, but the werewolf simply shrugged. "Don't ask me," Remus said shrewdly, eyeing Harry and Archie's too innocent faces. "These two seem to have something besides dueling on their minds."

"As you know, Harry and I are starting our fourth year in school," Archie said. "Many witches and wizards our age are coming into magical gifts and family magic, and it's a great time, developmentally speaking, for us to begin training in more advanced magic."

"Is that so?" Sirius had a lazy grin on his face, but appeared to be humoring them so far.

"Oh yes," Harry said, earnest hope just shining from her wide eyes. "Archie and I have been thinking that it's high time we began honoring the family tradition and really growing into our place as the next generation of Marauders."

Remus was looking at her with dawning suspicion. "Harry, this better not be about—"

"Please teach us to be animagi!" Archie cried. He fell to his knees before Sirius, arms clasped over his head in a facsimile of prayer.

Belatedly, Harry sank to her own knees and smiled winningly up at her uncles, though Remus' frown was not encouraging. "Please, Uncle Remus, Uncle Sirius. We want to make you proud. I'm sure Archie and I are up to the challenge."

Sirius was beginning to frown, too. "Animagus training is tricky stuff. Not to mention dangerous."

"Which is why we didn't want to start looking into it on our own," Harry said quickly. "That would be irresponsible when we have two competent adults to supervise our training."

"Three," Remus reminded her sternly. "And don't think we haven't noticed that you chose to ask us after your mother left the room."

"James and Lily are going to be a hard sell on this," Sirius admitted. At the look Remus shot him, he held up his hands. "I'm not saying yes! But if we did—"

"We are _not_."

"— _if_ we did, James probably shouldn't find out right away," Sirius said, blinking innocently at Remus. "I mean, it's his job to arrest them if they succeed."

"Sirius you cannot be considering this." Remus was visibly exasperated. "They are too young."

"James and Dad were our age when they did it," Archie helpfully reminded him.

"And they were incredibly irresponsible," Remus said. "I cannot in good conscience be a party to this."

Archie stood slowly and Harry followed suit. With another silent glance they both smiled and began nodding reluctantly. "We understand, Uncle Remus," Archie said. "Sorry to worry you."

"We'll shelve the idea for now," Harry added. They collected their towels and water bottles and headed up to the Floo. Their first attack had been a failure, but that didn't mean they were giving up. They would just have to approach Sirius on his own. The loss of Remus' support wasn't ideal, but in the end it was Sirius who had the actual animagus experience. Remus was brilliant at magical theory, and probably would have good understanding of the process, but Sirius' insight was what they really needed.

They could be patient. It was practically in their nature, by now.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

Krait was running through her Protection Potion (she refused to call it 'Potter's Portable Protection Potion' no matter what the glaringly lurid posters advertising it in the Serpent's Storeroom windows proclaimed) as if the world was running out of Wardsmiths. The base it relied upon was one of the simplest potions in existence—a second-year could brew it, she didn't doubt. Still, her ingredient kit was not bottomless, and weeks of experimenting combined with a shocking rise in recent sales meant she needed to restock her lab with basics.

She set out for Tate's midmorning, planning to get her shopping done by noon and miss the lunch rush. She had a couple of things on backorder that might not be ready until later in the day, but more often than not Tate overestimated the time it would take to fill. Her potions kit hung from her shoulder, as it would be easier to stock her new purchases straight into the expanded compartments rather than lug them all home in bags.

Jason waved at her shyly from Eeylops and she waved back with a smile. He was a good kid, though she doubted he'd ever be particularly gifted at potions. None of the children she'd been instructing in the alleys had a real flare for the subject, but then the same could be said of her classmates at Hogwarts. Potions wasn't a subject that drew many people to it on its own merits.

She stepped into Tate's shop and paused for a moment to just inhale the smell of earth and preservatives. Not a pleasant smell by most standards, but Tate's was a home away from home for her and had been since the first time she sneaked away to explore it while her uncles were mooning over a Quality Quidditch display. It seemed much smaller, now, the shelves no longer intimidating shrines to the exotic but rather as familiar to her as the halls of Potter's Place.

She plucked a basket automatically from the stack on her way toward the sale shelves. Plenty of ingredients were still useful even after they'd lost the blush of life and become brittle or even brown. Some things had to be fresh to be potent, but for others the magic lingered even in the early stages of decomposition.

Besides, if they weren't purchased they'd be used as compost—a waste.

She took a bundle of the ginseng almost reflexively. She had plenty in her kit. Still, though. The Queen Anne's Lace looked all right, too. She took a disposable napkin from the pile kept on the shelf for the purpose of casual handling and turned the small clusters to check for rot. Satisfied, she stacked any bundles with a good amount of flowers in her basket. On the fifth bundle, her hand froze and she narrowed her eyes at the little white flowers. They looked very similar to the rest of the plants, and yet…there was just a hair too much space between the petals. It was hard to tell because of the way they'd been tied together, but the umbels also didn't look quite right in the way they branched.

Harry scoured the shelf and pulled out one other suspicious-looking bundle, carefully using the napkin to protect her skin as she carried them down the aisle and over to the front counter. The proprietor wasn't there, so she called, "Mr. Tate? Do you have a minute?"

A cheerful voice called out from the back room. "Just a moment!" She'd just set her basket down when Tate rounded the doorway behind the counter, wiping his hands on his apron absently. "Miss Potter! My favorite little customer!"

"Not so little anymore," Harry reminded him.

Tate waved her words aside with a smile. Today his curly brown hair was escaping its ponytail in every direction. He looked energized and his brown eyes creased at the edges as he said, "Guess who else paid me a visit today?" Harry shook her head, bewildered. Tate raised his voice toward the back room, "Boy, leave those fangs alone and come say hello to your friend!"

"We're not friends."

Harry recognized the elegant drawl and suppressed a groan. Her day had been so promisingly uneventful. Caelum Lestrange appeared behind the counter as if he had every right to be there, never mind that the last time she'd seen him in the apothecary he'd been storming out of the place.

"Lestrange, always a pleasure," Harry said, summoning a smile with only a little effort.

"The lad's finally come to pay his tab." Tate clapped Lestrange on the back and positively twinkled at him. Harry felt her eyes go wide and wondered if anyone had ever touched Caelum Lestrange with so much familiarity. The handsome boy certainly looked a bit like a dog trying not to bite the hand that fed it.

"Indeed," Lestrange said, scarcely a sniff detectable in his voice. "Mr. Tate was just showing me some of his more unusual ingredients."

Harry felt a slight twinge in her chest. Tate… had a secret store of special ingredients? And he'd shown them to _Lestrange?_ She felt a little betrayed. The expression on Lestrange's face said he could tell, and he was enjoying her disappointment. "You can't beat the quality here," she said, deciding not to engage the question hanging in the air between them.

"Yes, well." Tate at least looked a bit uncomfortable. "Every so often I come across an oddity that doesn't much appeal to mainstream brewers, so… I just keep it off the shelves until someone with a particular interest happens to drop by."

Harry read the truth in Tate's worried brown eyes. He had ingredients of questionable legality or morality in the back. She supposed it really didn't matter if he hadn't ever offered to show her because she was a young, naïve-looking girl or because her father was an Auror. Either way, she likely wasn't going to get to see them today.

She gestured to the bundles of flowers she'd pulled from the shelf and said, "I just wanted to let you know I think some hemlock was mixed in with your Queen Anne's Lace."

Tate's face grew worried for an entirely different reason. "Surely not," he said, pulling a pair of gloves out of one of his apron's many pockets to protect his skin before picking the flowers up gently. He turned them this way and that, a frown slowly overtaking his countenance. "It's difficult to tell with the stalks and leaves cut off," he muttered.

Harry nodded. Most of the obvious differences between the two lay in the lower parts of the plant. The flowers were almost identical. "Compare them to these," she said, bending to retrieve one of the actual Queen Anne's Lace clusters from her basket.

Lestrange, who never doubted that his opinion was wanted, took it from her and pulled the flowers down and away from the center. "See this?" He indicated a single, tiny red flower in the very middle of the white clusters. "This is how you know it's Queen Anne's Lace. Like a drop of blood in the center."

Tate untied the suspect flowers so that he could better pull their umbels apart. The bundle fell naturally into a much wider, rounder shape once free of the string. "Good Merlin, it is hemlock," he breathed. Dropping the poisonous flowers, he discarded his gloves hurriedly and retrieved a thick logbook from under the counter. "I got that shipment last week. Didn't sell much, went to the sale shelf this morning…" He began paging through the book with feverish intensity. Every now and then he scribbled something down on a scrap piece of parchment. After a few minutes in which Harry exchanged a series of silent, awkward glances with Lestrange, Tate stood up straight and wiped his brow with the back of his wrist.

"Five people purchased Queen Anne's Lace since that shipment," Tate said. "Mr. Lestrange, I'm sorry, but I will have to continue our discussion another day. I must contact these customers immediately and pray that no irreparable harm has been done." His eyes moved down the short list and he sighed in obvious dismay.

"What is it?" Harry asked, frowning slightly as well. She had hoped she was just being paranoid. Hemlock was extremely dangerous even in small quantities, and Queen Anne's Lace was used in a few fairly common contraceptives. It reacted entirely differently from hemlock in a potion, of course, but an inexperienced brewer might not notice.

"I have contact information for only three of these customers," Tate said. "One I have a name for, but no address, and the last…" He gulped visibly. "It was a vampire. Merlin preserve me if I poisoned a vampire."

"Which vampire?" Harry asked, peering at the list upside down.

Tate shuddered. "Was too nervous to ask for his name. I remember this one. He came in last Tuesday evening, just after I'd put the fresh shipment on the shelves. Those yellow eyes gave me the willies."

The list just said 'tall vamp with dark hair,' which probably described eighty percent of vampires. "Did you see a cloak?" she asked. "A black one or a grey one?"

"Black, I think." He didn't sound too sure, but it was a good starting place.

"A black cloak in these alleys means he's probably a member of the Strigoi Shrouds," Harry reasoned. "If he was a Carpathian, he'd have had a grey cloak. The Shrouds all live in the same compound, so a message there will reach whoever bought the Queen Anne's Lace, if he really was a member. If not, they may at least know how to find a random vampire or to get the word out about the mix-up."

Tate stared at her for a moment. He seemed unenthused about the prospect of being in any sort of contact with vampires. Lestrange was more pointed in his critique. "If he shows up in a vampire den and admits to accidentally poisoning one of them, they will drain his blood in forfeit. Idiot."

She thought the insult was a bit uncalled for. "It was an honest mistake, and it was the supplier's error, not Mr. Tate's. I'm sure if you explain, Count Aurel will understand."

"How do you know one of their names?" Lestrange gazed at her with mounting incredulity. "You sound like you hang out with those… those inhuman _things_."

Harry rolled her eyes. "Careful Lestrange, your upbringing is showing."

Before Lestrange could snap back, Tate leaned forward to ask, most earnestly, "Miss Potter, are you saying you know how to contact these vampires? You could get a message to them?"

"Well…" Harry had really planned to do other things that day. Still, it was potentially a matter of life and death, so she couldn't exactly refuse. "I can make a trip that way, sure. Is it okay if I leave my basket here? I'll come back for it after I deliver the message."

Mr. Tate nodded quickly. "Of course, Miss Potter. Perhaps you could take Mr. Lestrange with you, if you're going somewhere unsavory."

Harry tried not to smile. She did eye Lestrange's skinny build briefly before shaking her head, just to see the older boy flush in annoyance. "Thanks, Mr. Tate, but I can handle myself. Besides, you should send Lestrange to Gringotts with the name of the other customer. The goblins may be willing to part with some contact information for you if you explain the dire circumstances. If nothing else, the goblin nation likes to have wizards in their debt." Tate grimaced, but had to agree it was the best course of action for the last name. Lestrange looked mutinous, but Harry spoke again before he could protest. "We can meet back here after and you can tell me how your Shaped Imbuing is coming along."

His fine features froze in indecision before he sneered. "I hope you have all afternoon. I've made ample progress in the necessary exercises."

"It's a date," Harry simpered. The splotchy anger that bloomed on Lestrange's face was more than worth the indulgent smile Tate gave them.

"It is _not_ —"

Harry left the shop before Lestrange could work up too much steam. She had been in the apothecary long enough that the crowds were beginning to swell in Diagon. As she turned toward the branch with Knockturn, she spotted Margo under an awning with a basket of purple flowers that sort of looked like daisies. "Asters?" she asked, coming closer and peering into the basket.

Margo smiled toothily. "They bloom best in late summer," she confided.

Fishing a couple knuts from her purse, Harry exchanged them for a flower. "Can you carry a message to Leo for me?" she asked, looping the Aster through her belt. "It's pretty important."

The red-haired girl nodded, curls bouncing. "Definitely. Right now he's…" she pursed her little mouth into a moue of thought. "Probably meeting with the shops owners. What's the message?"

"There was a mistake at the apothecary and a vampire was sold a dangerous poison by accident. I'm going to the Lamia Lodge to talk to whoever is there about it, but Leo might want to know in case the Shrouds get upset." Harry tilted her head at Margo. "Got all that?"

Margo nodded, though she looked a little uneasy. "Leo won't like it if you visit the vampires alone."

"I'll be okay," Harry promised. Margo bit her lip but nodded and hefted her basket up so the handle rested on her shoulder and the bottom was cradled close to her side. As the girl took off, Harry realized it was a practiced posture—she was fast.

Harry walked slowly, mentally trying to compose an explanation for the hemlock that didn't put Tate in any danger of retaliation. She was also a little worried about missing the turnoff. She'd only been to the Lamia Lodge once, after all, and it was over a year ago in linear time, considering how much she'd folded with her time-turner the last few months of the term.

When she found the right building, she recognized it without needing to glance at the crookedly hung numbers above the knocker. All the narrow windows at street level were boarded up—not in a neat, preparing for a bad storm sort of way, but in a deliberately creepy, haunted house aesthetic. The boards crisscrossed haphazardly and left gaps, though the glass behind the boards was clearly blackened so that no light would pass through regardless.

She approached the ugly grey door, ignoring the scratches dramatically framing the doorknob, and grimaced as she swung it open and the hinges once again produced that horrid squeal she remembered. If she ever had reason to come to the Lamia Lodge again, she vowed she would bring oil for those criminally neglected mechanisms. The carpet in the entryway was faded and let a small puff of dust escape at her every step. She didn't know how anyone—even vampires—could live this way, but she supposed they didn't have to breathe in any case.

The lobby looked, if anything, slightly shabbier than the last time she'd been there. The desk still stood in one corner of the room, but it was missing a leg now and listed to one side. Its angle of incline did not appear to bother Gavril, who slumped in a mimicry of sleep over the desk. He might have been there all day, were it not for the dust floating through the air around him to slowly re-settle where it had been recently disturbed.

"Good morning, Mr. Gavril," Harry said. She waited patiently as the thin vampire roused himself with exaggerated lethargy. His long, flat hair parted around his waxy features as his head lifted, and his black eyes finally latched onto her with a faintly surprised expression.

"It's you," he breathed, his voice both a rasp and an echo. In a matter of moments, he had abandoned his theater and rounded the desk to stand in front of her. Gavril was still ridiculously tall, looming over her with a height that was just unnecessary. Leaning down to inspect her, he said, "Wearing your young skin today? At least you smell better than last time."

Harry didn't bother answering his implied inquiry—it wasn't any of his business why she had taken an aging potion while she stayed at the Lodge. "Alas, I cannot say the same for you, sir." As she expected, the vampire laughed; Gavril found endless amusement in the world. She pointedly did not eye his gleaming fangs as they flashed in the dim lighting.

"Have you come to stay with us again, child?" Gavril looked almost hopeful, though she told herself she was imagining it. "Irina will be so glad to see you."

"Don't put words in my mouth, Gavril." The redheaded vampiress herself appeared at the head of a staircase that led down to a lower floor. Today her deep red locks drifted in soft waves behind her as she moved unhurriedly to join her mate. "You again? Don't tell me this is your preferred vacation destination."

Harry shook her head. "I've actually come to speak to Count Aurel. It's a matter of some urgency."

"Nothing is urgent to us," Irina said, her low voice unconcerned.

"It may be a matter of life and death," Harry said, frowning slightly. Come to think of it, could vampires be poisoned? Even if not, they surely wouldn't appreciate a perceived attempt, she reasoned.

"How interesting." Gavril turned his head at an unnatural angle, presumably to better observe her blank expression. "Unfortunately for you, the Count is not here."

She nodded her understanding. "Then perhaps you could help me, Mr. Gavril. You are his deputy, right?"

By the way the two vampires sank into eerie stillness at her words, she thought perhaps that was not the sort of thing that random humans were supposed to know. Before she could wonder whether her chances of being eaten had just risen sharply, she heard the awful, cringe-worthy screech that signaled the front door to the hotel opening. Harry turned around to see Leo stepping briskly into the lobby and couldn't prevent relief from softening her posture at the sight of his confident stride.

"Harry, there you are," Leo said, smiling in a way that was just a tad practiced. "I wondered if you would go ahead without me."

Gavril drew back ever so slightly from where he'd been hovering over her. "You neglected to mention that your business for the Count was from the Rogue."

"I was just getting to that." Harry's smile was sweet as Leo came to a stop beside her. Irina flashed a single fang at her in a returning smile. Harry made a mental note that vampires didn't like surprises.

Leo's hand on her shoulder made her jump slightly, so focused had she been on the vampiress's vaguely menacing smile. "Why don't you tell them why we're here, Harry?"

She relaxed into the story she'd rehearsed mentally on the way over. "I happened to be in the apothecary on Diagon this morning when Mr. Tate discovered that he'd received a duplicitous shipment the week before. What had been sold to him as Queen Anne's Lace actually had a small amount of hemlock mixed in. He was quite concerned for his customers' safety, and began contacting anyone in his logs who had bought the tainted shipment at once. Unfortunately, he did not have contact information for a male vampire who patronized his shop last week. Mr. Tate recalled that he wore a black cloak." She eyed the black fabric draping around the two vampires meaningfully.

Gavril and Irina lost some of their unnatural stillness, and Gavril inclined his head as he finished speaking. "So you've come to look for him here."

"We wanted to ensure that your coven was informed of the mistake at once," Leo said. "I would hate to see a vampire caught up in an accident if it could be prevented."

"And it would be a shame if the mistake were discovered by Count Aurel later, and offense taken at the carelessness of this man," Gavril said. She thought she could detect a small hint of amusement in his eyes despite the grave tone of his voice.

"Just so," Leo said pleasantly.

"There are many vampires in our coven." Irina sounded unenthused. "Are we to question them all?"

Gavril's thin shoulders floated upwards in a shrug. "The Count will want this settled before he returns." Turning to Harry, he asked, "Did Mr. Tate happen to recall anything else about this vampire?"

She cast her mind back and reeled in the memory easily. "Dark hair, yellow eyes."

The vampires exchanged a wry look. "Must be," Gavril said, his breath escaping on the words almost reluctantly. Turning back to Harry and Leo, he said, "The vampire you seek is indeed here. Would you like to speak to him directly?"

"I would appreciate the opportunity to issue a personal apology," Leo said agreeably.

"Come this way." Gavril led them toward the staircase as Irina took a seat on the dusty front desk. Harry supposed she would be watching the door.

As they reached the first stair, Harry couldn't help asking, "Isn't the kitchen down this way?" She dreaded to think of the consequences had the vampires been _cooking_ with hemlock.

Gavril tossed his head back in a laugh that reverberated around them unnaturally before fading. "We aren't going to eat you, if that's what you're worried about."

"I wasn't," she muttered, though perhaps she should have been. Leo cast a reassuring look over his shoulder at her. If she followed him a bit too closely down the stairs, her friend didn't seem to mind.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs, blackness met them. She could barely see Leo's face and he was standing right beside her. She could hear the faint rustle of Gavril's cloak as he continued moving, but Leo's hand on her arm dissuaded her from continuing to follow. "Could we trouble you for a light?" Leo asked, all politeness.

Gavril's chuckling met them before he reappeared in the small pool of light at the bottom of the stairs. "But of course. We never have humans down here—I'm afraid I'll have to fetch a candle."

He was gone before they had time to blink, leaving them in the near-darkness. "Should have just used my wand." Leo huffed, and it was an exasperated noise. "I can't believe you came in here without me."

"I didn't know you were coming," she said softly, well aware that any vampires around would be able to hear them anyway.

"You thought when Margo ran into my meeting with the Business Association and started babbling about vampires and poison and _you_ that I would, what? Nod my head and go back to the discussion on grocery subsidies?" She couldn't see his expression clearly, but the incredulity came across in his voice just fine.

She admitted that, if she really thought about it, there was no world in which Leo would have stayed away. "Thank you for coming," she said after a pause. She certainly wouldn't rather be standing in the dark in a vampire's basement by herself.

"I'll always come when you're in trouble," Leo said. There was nothing but honesty in his voice.

Harry had to smile. "I wouldn't say I was in _trouble_ —"

"You were."

She jumped as Gavril's voice sounded just over her shoulder. His laugh told her the vampire had definitely seen it. With careful dignity, Harry turned her head slowly to glare at where she assumed the vampire was hiding in the shadows. "That's mean," she told him. The vampire only laughed again.

There was the swish of a match and then a small flame bloomed into existence. Seeing the vampire's face lit from below by the flickering candle, Harry wasn't sure whether the light was a mercy or not. Gavril looked distinctly alarming with his bone structure thrown into sharp relief. "Come, my guests," Gavril said, carrying the candle left down a narrow passage that was now barely visible in the candlelight.

Harry and Leo followed the light down the passage, passing several doors before coming to one with the word 'Distillery' barely legible. Fighting sudden images of vampires drinking hemlock infused spirits, Harry held her spine straight as they entered a mid-sized workroom. From what she could see in the minimal illumination, it was a little smaller than her potions lab at home. There were several counters along the walls at what was, for Harry, chest height, and a small cauldron burned on the farthest one, the blue flames beneath giving off enough light to see the figure beside it turn toward them as they entered.

"Gavril, what is it?" This vampire's voice was sharper than the others she'd heard. It still had a hint of the leaves-in-the-wind quality that she now associated with his kind, but it sounded… younger, for lack of a better descriptor. More alive. She could make out his arm gesturing toward her and Leo as the vampire added, "I'm not hungry, so tell Grandfather to let me alone."

Gavril's voice was definitely exasperated when he replied. "They aren't here to donate, idiot. They're here to see you." The vampire inclined his head toward Leo, his curtain of hair momentarily obscuring the candle's flame, and said, "This is the Rogue, Lionel Hurst, and this is his… Harry." Harry blinked at being referred to in such a way, but let it pass.

"If you think you can influence my grandfather's politics by making nice with me, you are sadly mistaken," the vampire said sharply. "Aurel values a great many people's opinion above my own."

"If you would stop sniping long enough to listen, Newborn, you could cease making such a fool of yourself," Gavril drawled. He seemed not at all impressed with what Harry could only deduce was a familial relationship between the younger vampire and the Count.

"We're here about a recent purchase you may have made from an apothecary on Diagon Alley," Leo said, keeping his voice friendly. "There is a chance you were sold a mislabeled ingredient, and the shopkeeper is most eager to tender his apology and ensure that no harm has come of the mix-up."

That seemed to take the vampire aback. At least he paused a long moment before answering. "This is about the hemlock? I bought it fair, and I've no intention of returning it."

"You knew what it was?" Harry hadn't considered that possibility.

"Of course I did." The vampire sounded offended now. "That's why I bought it. Such a reasonable price for a poison of its potency. I couldn't believe it; I picked out all the specimens that smelled fresh, though it was more than I required for my work."

Harry couldn't fathom their luck. Not only had the vampire _meant_ to buy hemlock, but it sounded as though he'd taken most of what had been mixed into the Queen Anne's Lace as well. Leo didn't sound quite as relieved as she felt when he asked, "What work might that be?"

 _Oh_ , she thought, _right_. They should probably be concerned with what the vampire _wanted_ hemlock for.

"Kasten has an interest in essences," Gavril said. His tone did not communicate a matching interest in the subject. "It's all he does—all he has done, since he was reborn."

Kasten did not seem embarrassed by his hobby. "My ambition is to collect the purified essence of every substance on this earth. Everything has a purified form. I must continually perfect my techniques to increase the potency of my collection. This decade I am focused primarily on toxins, poisons included."

"That's a fascinating aspiration," Harry said, her mind racing. How many things had he distilled in this manner? Could he truly capture the essence of such things as minerals? Animals? She suppressed a shiver. That was an unpleasant thought, actually. "How long does it take you to condense something to the level you want?"

The young vampire must have been taken aback at her question. He was somewhat hesitant in answering, though his voice gained momentum as the explanation was related. "It depends on the substance in question. Some specimens can be quite resistant. A tetrodotoxin secreted by red salamanders, for instance, gave me some trouble several years ago, as it is particularly resistant to—"

"Heat," Harry muttered, nodding along. She had looked into neurotoxins back in her first year at Hogwarts, after the incident with Lee Jordan.

"Yes," the vampire agreed, a slight excitement to his tone. "As you can see, I finally succeeded, but it required alternate methods of separation." He had moved an arm to gesture to something behind him, but she couldn't make it out in the dim lighting.

"I'm sorry, I can't actually see," Harry said, regretful.

"Ah." Kasten said. There was an awkward pause. "Gavril, would you allow this human use of her wand for a moment? Just so she can see my work."

Gavril sounded long-suffering as he said, "Go on, then. Make yourself a light."

"I've got it," Leo said firmly. "Harry is still underage." That had never stopped him encouraging her to use her wand before. Harry wondered if Leo would rather he be the one to essentially brandish a weapon in the middle of the coven's nest, in the presence of its second in command.

Leo's Lumos hurt her eyes for a brief moment, but once she'd adjusted she marveled at what had been revealed. The moderate-sized workspace actually had a ceiling at least twice the height of its width, and filling every length of wall all the way from the counters to the ceiling were shelves. The shelves were filled entirely with vials, each labeled and carefully aligned. Harry actually held her breath as she took it all in with wide eyes. It was a _library of ingredients_. Her heart squeezed with envy and admiration. "Amazing," she said softly.

"Thank you," Kasten said. She could see him properly now, and his resemblance to Count Aurel was slight, but distinct. He had yellow eyes, and his hair was cropped close to his head, but the color, she thought, was similar to that of the ancient vampire she'd met in the Dancing Phoenix. "I have made good progress since my turning, though I still have far to go."

She looked at the vials again and realized they weren't ingredients; they were essences. Every vial was a substance the vampire had already distilled down to its purest, most potent form. Her respect for him rose, as did her wariness. Who knew how many dangerous things sat, unassuming, on the shelves around them?

"It's a very impressive collection," she said, honestly amazed that a library like this existed.

"Yes, and we're very glad to know that you purchased the hemlock knowingly," Leo said. He glanced at her as he added, "Since there's no harm done, we can put this incident behind us."

"Certainly," Gavril said, quickly seizing on Leo's rather obvious retreat. "If everyone is satisfied, I will escort you back upstairs. The Count will be very grateful that you took the time to personally see to his grandson's wellbeing." He started toward the door, and Leo followed.

"Harry." Leo gave her an insistent look, and Harry withheld a sigh of disappointment. She knew that she couldn't reasonably hang around in a vampire's distillery and ply him with questions about the specimens he'd collected over however many decades he'd been roaming the earth, and yet… she really wanted to.

"It was lovely to meet you, Mr. Kasten," she said, giving in with good grace. "Thank you for showing us your work. Maybe I will see you at Mr. Tate's sometime."

"Yes, perhaps." Kasten lifted a graceful hand in an aborted gesture of farewell, letting it drop again too quickly and watching them leave the distillery with a strange look on his pale face.

Leo let his wand light fade and holstered it once more as Gavril led them back to the lobby. Irina hadn't moved from the desk, but she rose weightlessly at their return. "Thank you for coming all this way, Rogue." The vampiress cut a look to Harry, adding, "And you." It could not have escaped Irina's notice that her name was Harry. Clearly it was in the nature of vampires to be vexing to wizards.

"It was no trouble at all," Leo said, smiling with a politician's charm.

"Sorry for the false alarm," Harry added, grimacing slightly. How foolish she must have seemed, thinking a creature whose senses far outstripped her own would be fooled by a flower's appearance.

"It speaks well of your intentions," Gavril assured them. "I will be sure to appraise the Count of the Rogue's good will."

"Much obliged to you for your hospitality and understanding," Leo said, bowing slightly in a show of respect. Harry hesitated, then did the same. As she straightened she caught Irina's eyes, and the vampiress gave her another of those fang-flashing smiles. She was sure the redhead was mocking her, Harry just wasn't sure how exactly.

They left the Lamia Lodge, and outside in the sunshine the air seemed cleaner, the world happier. They paused for a moment on the street to adjust their eyesight before walking back toward Knockturn's main alley.

"Guess I pulled you away for nothing, Leo," Harry said after a minute of silent walking.

"Don't apologize," Leo said, reading her mind. "You made the right call. I need to know about this sort of thing. The Carpathian Clan has been more restless of late, harassing humans who stray too close to their nest. Count Aurel helps to keep Countess Maricara in check, and the Rogue needs to stay in his good graces."

"The Carpathians are led by a woman? Is she a real countess, or is that just what coven leaders are called?" Harry asked, fascinated despite herself.

"The latter," Leo confirmed. "And yes, Countess Maricara has been running that coven for nearly fifty years, or so I'm told. She's rather mercurial. Some years her coven doesn't cause much trouble, but other years they're almost a pestilence." Harry digested this for a few minutes. Her train of thought was derailed when Leo looked over at her sharply and said, "So… 'never been to a vampire hotel,' wasn't it?" Harry stumbled in surprise at the change of subject.

"Well…" She stopped talking. She really had no explanation that would make sense to him.

"Was this while your 'aunt' was staying in your apartment, by any chance?" Leo pressed. He was so smug sometimes.

"Sort of," Harry admitted. She really needed to keep the timeline vague on this one.

"And was there a reason you couldn't stay, I don't know, at your house? Where you live?" Leo deserved an award for the superiority in his voice. It was truly inspired.

"Ask me no questions, Leo, and I'll tell you—well, _fewer_ lies." Harry laughed at her own joke.

"Yes, yes, you're very mysterious." Leo waggled his eyebrows at her. "If you won't talk, want to spar?" They had reached Knockturn now, and Leo looked poised to turn toward Kyprioth Court.

Harry shook her head. "Sorry, Leo, but I promised another potioneer I'd meet up to talk about Shaped Imbuing."

"Huh. The pretty one?" Leo asked, face expressionless.

"You wouldn't find him pretty after talking to him for thirty seconds," Harry said, laughing.

"Why help him, then?"

Harry grew serious for a moment. "Honestly? He's the only one besides Master Snape to even ask. He's a good brewer, behind all the nastiness that is his default personality."

"All right." Leo lifted his hand in a casual wave as he began to walk backwards toward the lower alleys. "Stop by tomorrow and we can spar then."

Harry grinned. "You're on."

She headed back to Diagon, walking into Tate's apothecary just as Lestrange was walking out. He stepped back upon seeing her, giving her space to come fully into the shop. "Were you leaving?" she asked, a bit put out that he would ditch her even after agreeing to wait.

Lestrange sneered as easily as he breathed. "I assumed you'd been eaten, since you were gone well over an hour. It only took me twenty minutes to get the information from the goblins, and ten minutes of that was reminding the nasty things just how much gold my family has buried beneath their bank."

"Sorry to disappoint you," Harry said. "Thanks for worrying over my poor head, though. It means so much." The pureblood scoffed but didn't rise to the bait. Maybe he could be taught. She walked to the counter and greeted Mr. Tate with a smile. "Found the vampire who bought the Queen Anne's Lace. His name is Kasten, and he says he knew it was hemlock when he bought it—he thought you gave him a great discount."

"A discount?" Tate shook his head on a relieved laugh. "Well, hemlock is expensive, not to mention a controlled ingredient. If he bought it on purpose he did get a good deal! Thank you for doing that, Miss Potter. You've got your father's courage."

"And his idiocy," Lestrange added under his breath.

They both ignored him. Tate told her that with the help from the goblins, he'd managed to get in touch with all of the other customers, and none had found any hemlock mixed into their purchases. Harry thought Kasten had probably taken most of it for himself, and could only be glad that things had worked out.

"May I have my basket back?" she asked.

Tate pulled it from behind the counter and said, very solemnly, "Anything you want is half off today, Miss Potter."

"I couldn't," she said, embarrassed.

"It is the least I can do," Tate insisted. "Besides, you have a credit from that other time still." After a moment of confusion, she realized he was referring to last summer when she'd covered Lestrange's debt. It was kind of Tate not to remind the proud boy of the incident.

Harry could tell Lestrange was getting impatient, but she wasn't about to forget the reason she came to the apothecary in the first place. Plus, a 50 percent discount? That was nothing to sniff at. She collected everything she needed, and a few things she didn't, and packed her purchases away in her potions kit. "Thank you, Mr. Tate," she said as she returned the basket.

"No, Miss Potter, thank _you_."

She left with Lestrange on her heels. "Should we go to the Potions Guild?" she asked. "We could probably find an empty lab to use."

Lestrange appeared to think it over for a moment before shaking his head slowly, almost hesitantly. "No… you should come to my house."

Harry was massively taken aback at the suggestion and couldn't hide it. "That sounds like a terrible idea. Your parents hate my family."

"I could say the same," Lestrange pointed out. "Anyway, the Guild isn't really obliged to provide rooms for random wizards off the street. Your lab is depressing, and you don't have any good ingredients."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Harry asked, fairly offended. "I have everything."

Lestrange favored her with a pitying look. "Seriously? Your lab is a commoner's paradise. All the basic, boring ingredients and none of the rare, interesting ones."

Harry's eyes flashed. "By rare you mean illegal."

"I mean hard to get," Lestrange said smoothly. "I know your opportunities in this area are sadly stunted by your father's position, but aren't you a little curious? My lab has a host of powerful ingredients you don't see every day. Ever worked with selkie skin?"

She hadn't, and he knew it. "Selkie skins are black-listed. There's a treaty forbidding their harvesting because of the cruelty inflicted in the process."

"And that is a shame, but my family has a few. You don't even have to feel bad," he added, correctly reading her disapproving expression. "As far as you know, my ancestors acquired them before that treaty was put into effect. Now they're just sitting under preservation spells, not doing anyone any good."

She stared at him, her mouth tight as she thought. Selkie skin was probably the least of it. She had to admit she was curious. There were plenty of old potions texts that alluded to potent concoctions that could only be created with the rarest of components. She was also aware of the fierce moral debate that had upheaved the potions community in the last few decades. There was a stronger focus in modern times on how ingredients were collected and what processes could be considered sustainable and humane.

Still… Lestrange already had these ingredients. It's not like she was going with him to pluck Aubrey chicks from their nests. What good were they doing sitting in a lab, unused? What if, somewhere in the older boy's collection of forbidden ingredients, there was knowledge to be gleaned that could benefit others?

She could feel her potions mania slowly overcoming her good sense. She cast about for other reasons why this was a terrible idea. "I don't think your parents will want _me_ having access to all these amazing ingredients you claim to have."

"They won't even know," Lestrange said quickly, clearly sensing her indecision. "Mother and Father are at an S.O.W. Party function this afternoon. The monthly meeting always turns into a social affair after, so they won't be home until late." When she frowned, he scoffed at her. "What are you, scared? Don't worry, Halfblood, I won't let them bleed you."

She made a face at him, but couldn't deny that she was tempted. _I'm just going to look_ , she told herself virtuously. Aloud, she said, "All right, we'll go to your house. First, we'll work on Shaped Imbuing. If we have time after, you can show off your collection."

Lestrange smiled widely, and Harry wished he wouldn't. It made his face absolutely beautiful, which in turn made her want to hex him with boils. Why was she going with him? Her father would have an aneurism if he found out. Not to mention what Archie would do to her. "We can Floo from the pub," Lestrange said, setting off at once, probably hoping she would follow before she regained her senses.

She did follow him. Maybe it was the events of the day that made it so hard to refuse Lestrange's offer. Something about not getting to see what Tate had in his backroom and then not getting to stay and talk with Kasten about _his_ collection had left her supremely unsatisfied. Anyway, if she were going to be a top Potions Mistress someday, wouldn't she need to be familiar with all possible ingredients? Even unsavory ones? There was only so much she could learn from books.

Lestrange paused at the Floo and said, "Give me five minutes before you come through."

Harry narrowed her eyes at him. "So you can take down the blood wards?"

"Unless you'd rather burn to ashes in the grate," Lestrange said. He paused as though waiting for her to make up her mind, then let out a sharp laugh. "Relax, brat. I've done this before."

"For all your other halfblood friends, I'm sure." Harry ran a hand through her hair agitatedly. This was such a bad idea. What was she doing? _Selling my soul to the potions devil_ , she admitted internally.

"Five minutes," he reminded her sternly, then stepped into the grate with a loud, "Dartmoor Castle!"

Harry's eyebrows rose against her will. A castle? She supposed the Lestranges were in the Book of Gold, but castles were rare even among old families these days. She did wonder how they'd built a castle in a moor, but she supposed it wasn't _all_ bogs. When six minutes had passed, she Flooed through to the same destination, her potions kit held close to her side to protect it from jostling as she unerringly fell out the other side onto her butt.

"Graceful as ever," Lestrange mocked, watching with no move to help as she regained her feet.

"It's almost like your Floo doesn't like me," she said, not willing to admit to Lestrange that she was just inexplicably terrible at Flooing.

"It has good taste," he said, pulling out his wand. She tensed slightly, but he only waved it at the Floo, muttering a string of Latin too soft for her to hear. She felt the wards spring back into place, and tried not to feel trapped. He gave her a once over, flicked his wand at her boots to remove the dust clinging to them, then nodded, apparently satisfied. "This way."

She took in her surroundings silently as they moved through his home. Where Malfoy Manor was subtly elegant, with wealth gleaming quietly from every carefully designed corner, the Lestrange castle was stark, with accents of unimaginable value stuck seemingly at random throughout otherwise large and empty rooms. The beautiful rug of what looked like woven Acromantula silk that seemed to continue endlessly down the passages they traversed still did nothing to disguise the bare stone floor beneath, which was crumblingly ancient. She suspected magic had a hand in keeping the rooms comfortable, as the cavernous spaces and dated masonry were just asking for a draft.

When they climbed the first spiraling staircase, Harry was surprised. They climbed two more before emerging in a rounded room that she realized from the small window must be in a tower of some sort. The view looked out over the moor, and she supposed the landscape had its own sort of beauty. "You know," she said, looking around slowly, "I've never been in a potions lab that wasn't below ground before." Traditionally, ingredients were stored in basements and dungeons because the air was cooler down there, and better for longevity, but with the right climate control spells there was no real reason for it. "I like it," she said. She imagined the window came in handy aerating the room after a particularly pungent brew. Not to mention the benefits of natural light.

"So glad you approve," Lestrange said, the acridness of his tone indicating he couldn't care less what she thought. Somehow, she didn't believe it.

She noted the beautiful curved bookcase that fitted perfectly to the round wall. It was filled with texts, scrolls, and journals. Seemed she wasn't the only one who hoarded old Guild periodicals. The rest of the wall space had been fitted with solid granite counters. There was an intimidating tool rack beneath the window with more knives and stirring rods than even Harry owned. She walked to the center of the room where four gleaming cauldron stations reigned, and realized the floor around the brewing station was _soft_. She bounced up and down on her heels, wondering if she was imagining things.

"You are so childish," her host said. He did not sound truly annoyed, though.

"Why is it squishy?" she asked, bewildered.

He gave her an odd look. "Haven't you ever noticed how your feet and back hurt after standing over a cauldron for a few hours?"

"Sure," she said, shrugging. You just got used to such things, if you were a brewer.

"Well, they don't have to," Lestrange said, giving her a look that said he thought her the worst kind of plebian.

"I see. That is brilliant," she said, bouncing a bit again. It did feel pleasantly supportive, yet comfortable beneath her boots. "Is it a spell or did you get the floors done in a special material?"

"Do you really want to talk about my floors?" Lestrange asked. Harry shook her head, albeit reluctantly. She was definitely going to look into that when she had a moment.

"First, wandless magic," she said, claiming one of the stools by the bookcase for her own. "How are you coming along?"

"I've got the trick of it," Lestrange told her, raising a hand with a showman's flourish. The air around his appendage condensed and began to spin until a tiny cyclone was balanced in his palm. "It's really not that hard, once you know how," he mused, staring at the twister until it dispersed.

Lestrange's face was serene, as though wandless magic came naturally to him. She almost bought it, except there were beads of sweat on his forehead and the room was quite comfortable. It was so like the older boy to think trying was beneath him. She had to admit he'd certainly got the hang of it, though.

"That's wonderful," she said, feeling a bit like she was praising one of the Rogue's kids for answering a tricky question correctly. "Elemental magic is the easiest kind of wandless magic, though. Can you do a spell?" She smiled at the affronted look he gave her. "Let's see one, then."

He turned his hand palm down, this time. His face seemed to contort against his will, but a small shield did materialize on the ground in front of him. She recognized it as a basic Protego and clapped her hands slowly. "That's perfect. It seems you've definitely mastered the concept, Lestrange. Nice work."

"There are still a few spells I can't do wandless," he said, probably thinking his words passed for modesty.

"You've plenty to work with for shaped imbuing, though," she said cheerfully. "Have you given it a go?"

Lestrange frowned. "It's not the same as wandless magic at all. You said one skill translated to the other, but I can't cast wandlessly through a stirring rod."

"It's not exactly the same, but wandless magic is necessary for the next step," Harry explained. "Right now you're using your hands to channel the magic instead of your wand, but you don't need to do that. You don't have to send the magic anywhere. You can create a spell without ever casting it. That's the trick to shaped imbuing."

The older boy just stared at her. He blinked slowly and shook his head. "You said that before, but it still doesn't make sense. Explain it some other way."

Harry sighed. No one ever believed her without proof. "I can show you, if you know how to project your consciousness to my magical core."

Lestrange scowled. "Now I am to learn mind magic, too? Just how many disciplines are you mixing, Potter?"

"This type of mind magic is useful in potions," she said, a bit defensive. She wasn't trying to make the task difficult just for the sake of it. "Here, imagine what it feels like when you consciously imbue. Describe it to me."

"It's like a river, flowing from me to the cauldron," Lestrange said. Harry had never imagined it that way, but if that's what worked for him, that's what she would use.

"So right now you're just pouring water into the river and it's ending up in the potion, right? That river is the key. You don't have to just send water down the river, get it? You can send ice."

"Ice." Lestrange did not appear to be having a moment of clarity.

"Yes, ice, as in water given a specific shape. The spell is the ice." She was starting to doubt her own explanation, the way he kept staring at her.

After a time, however, he fixed his eyes on the wall behind her and said, slowly, "You're saying my core is the head of the river. What I have to do is apply wandless magic as close to the wellspring as possible, so that by the time the magic is even released down the river, it's already become a spell."

"Yes." Harry could see it clicking in his expression.

"But I can't even feel the magic until it's already on its way out of my body," Lestrange said flatly.

"Oh," Harry said. "I suppose some meditation might be in order after all."

The boy groaned. "What have you got me into? Learn wandless magic; it's no big deal. And then we'll just learn some Occlumency while we're at it. Sure, all in a day's work. How the _hell_ did you manage this in two months?"

"I didn't!" She was quick to assure him. "I already knew this stuff before I started experimenting for the Guild."

"Of course you did." Lestrange laughed, and the sound was a bit hollow. "Because I forgot this is standard curriculum for second years. _Just what are they teaching you in that backwater school of yours?_ "

Harry frowned. "You seem upset. This was your idea, I'll remind you. You certainly don't have to learn Shaped Imbuing if you don't want to."

"And have an entire new branch of potions forever out of my grasp? I think not." The dark-haired teen took a breath and steadied his nerve. "Fine. Meditation. What do I need to do?"

She explained the concept behind projecting his consciousness into becoming aware of his magical core. "Once you can see the core in your mind's eye, you can differentiate between the inner and outer layers of your core, and when you get the hang of it you become aware of your core all the time. For instance, I can tell right now how much magic I've used today based on how my outer layer feels in my mind's eye."

"At least this won't be a waste of time if it doesn't work," Lestrange said, nodding.

Harry went on without acknowledging his pessimism. "When you reach that level of awareness of your own magic, it's easy to form a spell without releasing it outwardly. You'll recognize how a certain spell feels when your core forms it, if you use it enough times. Then it's just a matter of reverse engineering the instinctive process of casting a spell until you can recognize the feeling of each step separately. Once you know where the forming stops and the casting beings, you can just not do the second part. Instead, send the formed magic into a potion via conscious imbuing."

The pureblood nodded, looking overwhelmed. "Fine, then. I will work on that if I have time around my apprenticeship." He went to the bookcase and briskly made a series of notes on a spare piece of parchment before tucking it into a drawer and turning back to face her. "It would appear we've exhausted the topic of Shaped Imbuing for now," he said, smiling in an anticipatory way that was not at all reassuring. "Why don't we have some fun?"

"You just want to show off," she accused, nevertheless standing from her chair at his gesture.

"And you want to let me," he said knowingly. "Come, Halfblood, and see how the other half brews." Maybe it was wishful thinking, but he sounded as though he even meant the insult ironically. Lestrange left the room and doubled back the way they'd come, stopping one door down and opening it with a grand sweep of his arm. "After you." He grinned at her as she passed, and she couldn't help grinning back. No one was ever _excited_ about potions with her. It was nice having someone to be embarrassingly academic with.

Lestrange's potions cupboard looked a little like a mausoleum in an overcrowded cemetery. Floor to ceiling drawers surrounded them, and Harry was delighted to see that it was perfectly alphabetized, with the As beginning on the left of the entrance at the top of the column and continuing clockwise around the room. Every drawer had a neat label. "Are they all filled?" she asked. She couldn't help the low register of her voice. It felt like being in a shrine to one of the old gods. Sacred.

"No." Lestrange's voice was quiet, too. "I've done my best recovering the sorry state of this collection since coming into my majority, but some things it may take years to find. Sphinx feathers. Griffin talons. Things like that."

Harry nodded. Those were exceptionally rare ingredients. She hadn't heard of a potion being made with either in several years at least. In fact, all of the labels she could see were for ingredients at the very least expensive or dangerous. She suspected he had a separate storage room for the more mundane ingredients. There simply weren't enough drawers to hold every substance that could be useful in a potion.

"Grindylow webbing?" Harry wrinkled her nose. "What is that used in?"

Lestrange looked pleased to know something she didn't. "It's a thickener. It'll coalesce a potion into more of a paste, which makes it good for use in salves."

"So… it does the same thing as plant gum," Harry said.

"Essentially."

"How much does Grindylow webbing cost, exactly?" Harry asked, a smile tugging at her cheek.

"More than gum, is that what you want to know?" Lestrange snapped. "Why do you ruin everything?"

"I'm sorry," she said, smothering her amusement. "It's truly an impressive collection. You must have excellent connections to acquire so much in so short a time."

Lestrange considered her for a moment before deciding she was at least semi-sincere. "I do. A lot of it is who I am, however. Procurers tend to be blasé about selling me dubious ingredients once they learn my last name."

"Couldn't imagine why." Harry had never considered her family's good reputation to be a hindrance before, but she could imagine she would have more difficulty than Lestrange did in acquiring exotic, unregulated ingredients of interest. On the other hand, she wouldn't be on the lookout for Grindylow webbing anytime soon. Perhaps many of the so-called rare ingredients weren't as useful as their legends suggested.

Lestrange didn't acknowledge her cynicism. He studied the drawers around them in a manner that was too casual to be uncontrived. After a few moments he ran his fingers across a couple of the rows, idling brushing over a few labels before moving on to another section. He glanced at her sidelong, still trailing his fingers of his right hand here and there. "We should brew something," he suggested. Did he truly believe he came across as unconcerned?

"Oh?" Harry had no problem playing along. "Anything in particular?"

"Doesn't matter to me," Lestrange said. His fingers paused in one of the M-columns. "Ever used mermaid fluke?"

"Can't say that I have." It was hard to keep the dryness out of her voice. "Thinking of making a cure for hypothermia?"

Lestrange looked surprised. "You know more than most for someone who's never used the ingredient."

Harry was not. _ever_. going to admit to having read _Mermaid Hunting for Fun and Profit_. Instead, she smirked at him and adopted the superior expression he was always throwing at her. "It's basic anatomy. The tail fluke regulates body temperature, allowing merfolk to live comfortably underwater in all climates. It stands to reason it would be used in thermoregulatory medicine."

"That is true, but what _anatomy_ won't tell you is that mermaid fluke, if dried until warped, is the main ingredient in Coquere Cerebrum." Lestrange raised an eyebrow at her, as though inviting her to find that fact equally interesting.

"No." She could not believe he would even suggest it. Though she told herself she should have suspected something when he insisted they go to his lab to collaborate.

"It's a technical masterpiece," Lestrange argued quickly.

"It's a _torture_ potion. You think I don't know what it does? I am not helping you make a potion to _cook someone inside their own skin_." She took a slow breath and let it out carefully. To think, she assumed he only wanted to show off. Coquere Cerebrum was nearly impossible to brew without an assistant. Not to mention the magic required in the imbuing phase.

"It's not like I want to _use_ it." Lestrange had the gall to sound offended at her refusal. "I just want to see if we can do it."

"Just having that potion is a class C felony, not to mention brewing it without an experimenter license from the Guild." Harry leveled him with look that said _just how dumb to you think I am?_ Even if she hadn't read that awful book from Borgin and Burke's, she'd still know that Coquere Cerebrum's only use was to continually raise a person's internal temperature until their brains became scrambled eggs.

"It was only a suggestion," Lestrange said, somewhat bitterly.

Harry cast her gaze around the room for an alternate suggestion. Something appropriately challenging, but ultimately harmless. Something that called for the sort of ingredients Lestrange would take pride in providing. Something that could also be finished in a day. Something like… "Liberespirare."

"You're kidding." Lestrange shook his head.

"You seem so fond of mermaids, though," Harry said, her grin a taunt. "Why not make a potion that lets you pretend to be one?" In truth, Liberespirare was a potion that let you breathe in any environment. It worked underwater, but also in heavy smoke, high altitude, and even through poisonous fumes. It was a pretty useful potion to have on hand, and she couldn't see an obvious way it could be misused. It was also incredibly difficult. She had never brewed it herself. The timing was too tricky for one person to attempt without risking an explosion.

"It takes three hours," Lestrange complained. "And who is going to keep the potion when it's done? The recipe in Prince's Potions only makes one dose."

"We can make a double batch," Harry said. "It won't take any longer than the regular recipe. And besides, haven't you wanted to give it a go since that article two years ago arguing for its inclusion in the top forty most difficult potions of the modern age?"

"A double batch? That's twice the necessary magic. Are you trying to kill us?" Lestrange looked unconvinced, but Harry was warming to the idea.

"I'm sure it won't be that bad," Harry said.

"For freaks with more magic than sense, maybe." Lestrange sneered.

Harry only smirked at him. "You are so lucky I'm here. Let's see." She began pointing out ingredient drawers in the wall. "You've got siren hair, Grindylows gills, and look! You've even got dragon lung. I didn't even know they still sold dragon lung in England."

"They don't." Lestrange clenched his jaw in visible annoyance.

"What's wrong? Unless…all these drawers are empty?" Harry couldn't help but smile as Lestrange pinned her with a menacing glare. "Well, what's the problem, then?"

She could see him considering it, however reluctantly. "I would be in charge of the stirring, of course," he said, the challenge in his voice daring her to argue.

"Naturally," Harry said with a winning smile. "I do recall how precise your stirring technique was in the Guild's classes."

"And you would have to take over imbuing while I did that," Lestrange added, his face stern. It was almost endearing.

"Yes, definitely," she agreed. "You won't be able to concentrate on both at once." Plus, she sort of doubted he'd be able to imbue a double batch of Liberespirare without passing out.

Lestrange nodded once. "Fine. Go get the recipe from my bookcase and I'll start collecting what I can remember from here."

Harry was happy to do that. She really had been interested in this potion since its feature in _Potions Quarterly_. She had never been able to justify the expense, even if she could have found an assistant for an afternoon. This way, she would walk away with a valuable new potion in her kit and she could still sleep at night knowing that she hadn't jumped into the Dark Arts at the first invitation. She shivered at the thought of even attempting to brew something like Coquere Cerebrum. There was no academic argument worth bringing that gruesome concoction to life.

While she was waiting for him to return from the storeroom, she also took the liberty of picking out the appropriate cauldron and applying the necessary oil to the bottom and sides. She was just lighting the fire when he returned with an armful of neatly wrapped packets.

She pushed the open book toward her brewing partner while she selected a stirring rod that met the specifications in the recipe's prelude. Lestrange began rooting through cabinets below the counters and compiling the remaining ingredients onto a clear workstation.

At first it was somewhat awkward working with Lestrange. He was clearly used to taking the lead, but then, so was she when she brewed at home. Twice they both started on the same step at the same time. After the third time they bumped elbows, Harry decided to take a back seat. "I'll prep," she offered. "You take over the cauldron for now, and when we get to the third stage we can alternate adding ingredients." The third stage was the time crunch. She would endeavor to get all of the ingredients staged before they got that far, so that they could take turns tossing them in one after another.

Lestrange inclined his head and took over tending the potion confidently. She tried to pretend he was Professor Snape, and she was assisting him as she often did at Hogwarts. It didn't help that the older boy grunted in satisfaction every time he got a step right. Snape had certainly never done that. She wondered how it didn't drive Master Whitaker spare.

After the first hour, she was almost used to their dynamic. It was easier once she understood the rhythm of the potion itself. By the time they reached the second stage, she was handing Lestrange ingredients before he even asked for them.

"That's it for ten minutes," Lestrange said, setting aside the stirring rod and wiping his brow carefully. "It's not that difficult, so far."

Harry nodded. It really hadn't been. The potion didn't even have layers. The only tricky part was going to be stage three, she thought. The sheer speed at which they would have to add components was daunting. "I think we should count aloud for the next phase. Every second has to be exact, so we have to have our timing synched."

"You count the seconds, I'll count the stirs." Lestrange stretched his neck. Harry rolled her own shoulders in sympathy.

"I like these floors," she said. "My feet don't hurt at all."

"Now I know what to get you for Yule." The derisive smirk on his face made her doubt any such gift was forthcoming.

Harry spent the last few minutes of reprieve separating the ingredients into two lines on their workspace. "This is your row," she told him, gesturing to the far line. "They're already in order, so don't think about what you're adding, just dump the next pile in when I say so."

Lestrange nodded, concentration taking over his face. He picked up the stirring rod and looked at his watch to judge the exact moment he needed to continue stirring. As soon as the rod hit the potion's surface and began to turn, she began counting aloud. "One. Two. Add." Lestrange scooped the first pile of components into the cauldron one handed while continuing to stir, counting rotations under his breath. Harry picked her own pile up. "Four. Five. Six. Me." She sprinkled the contents in a single pass. "Eight. Add." Lestrange moved the next of his ingredients line into the potion. And so it went for three minutes straight. By the time they reached the end of their respective rows of ingredients, Harry was adding everything herself, sprinting back and forth between the counter and the potion as Lestrange could no longer reach that far while keeping one hand on the stirring rod.

"Merlin," she gasped, leaning against a counter to slow her heart rate while Lestrange finished the required stirring.

His eyes on his watch, her cohort merely hummed in agreement. His wrist snapped up at precisely the moment the potion needed to simmer and the rod lifted clear of the surface with nary an errant drop. "You're up, Brat."

Harry had already established a connection to the potion. Now she tugged on her core and started pouring magic down the pathway. Lestrange was just looking at her, somewhat expectantly. "What?" she asked.

"You have to imbue it," Lestrange snapped.

She raised an eyebrow. "What do you want me to do, close my eyes and stick out my tongue? I am imbuing it."

Lestrange frowned. "You don't need to touch the cauldron? Or the stirring rod?"

Ah. She did used to do that when she imbued. Harry vaguely remembered learning that it was easier that way to begin with. "It's not necessary," she told Lestrange after a moment. "It's just a matter of channeling the connection through the air with your mind instead of your body."

"Whatever, Freak." Lestrange took the recipe book and began reviewing the instructions for the final stages. Harry let him do that and focused on her awareness of the potion. It was starting to feel satisfied, but it wasn't quite full.

It was another few minutes before the potion was saturated with as much magic as it could hold. "Done," Harry said, breaking the connection with a thought.

Lestrange checked his watch. "We still have five minutes. Keep channeling."

"It can't hold any more," Harry said firmly. "Just let it simmer for the rest of the time, then begin the final stage.

"How do you _do_ that?" Lestrange was outright aggravated with her now. "This recipe is for a single dose, meaning the simmer time is allotted to give brewers enough time to add half the amount of magic you just put into it. Your rate of magic expenditure has got to be _insane_."

"My magic moves fast," she said, shrugging. "Why complain? We're ahead of schedule."

The pureblooded boy growled his irritation, but didn't argue further. He took up stirring again without hesitation when it was time, and by the time Harry had cleared away the workstation and packaged any leftover ingredients, Lestrange was finished.

"It's done," he said. A wave of his hand snuffed the flame beneath the cauldron and together they separated the finished result into two equal portions.

Harry held one of the beakers up to the light and smiled in satisfaction. "It's perfect. Murky-blue with a hint of violet. Well done, Partner."

"You did well enough, _Assistant_." There was no heat in his taunt. He was too busy labeling his dose with a sure hand.

She corked her half and tucked it into her potion kit with a thrum of pleasure. Not bad for a day's work. Harry picked up the cauldron and was about to ask where the sink was when a sharp pop broke the air in the lab and a house-elf more ancient than any she had ever seen at Hogwarts appeared near the door.

"Hestin, good, this cauldron needs—" Lestrange began. At the old elf's slow headshake he blinked. "What is it?"

"Young Sir's parents is being home. Hestin is notifying Young Sir as instructed." The house-elf popped away again, leaving a gaping silence in the room. Lestrange was the first to break it.

"Fuck." His eyes darted to Harry, who had frozen with the empty cauldron in surprised uncertainty. The pureblood looked downright scared, which was not doing much for her own nerves in the least. " _Fuck_ ," he hissed.

"What do we do?" Harry said, setting down the cauldron and slinging her potions kit across her chest securely. Lestrange was staring into space with a distraught expression, so Harry snapped her fingers in front of his face. "Lestrange. What's the quickest way out?"

"I can't take down the wards while they're at home," he said, his voice sounding flat. He was panicking she realized with dismay.

"That's okay," she said, using the voice she'd try to calm a wild animal with. "We don't have to use the Floo. There are other ways out of the house, right?"

Lestrange braced his hands on the countertop and took several short breaths before looking over at her with clear eyes. "Yes. There's a door to the garden. You can hop the fence and run to the edge of the wards then— _shit_. You can't Apparate. Mordred _damn_ it. Do you have a Portkey?"

"Yes," Harry said quickly. Her parents had made her a new emergency Portkey after the Cup. Also she _could_ Apparate if she had to. What was he going to do, report her? Not after what she'd seen in his potions cupboard today. "Take me to the garden."

"Right. Fine." He crossed to the door and stuck his head out warily before gesturing her to follow. "Not a word from here on, Potter. If you think my mother will let you out of here unscathed after catching sight of you…" He let out a laugh that sounded just a tad hysterical. "Just run if you see her, ok? What the _hell_ are they doing home early?"

She didn't think he was talking to her, so she offered no guesses. Instead, she took a moment to spell her shoes silent and wished she had her dad's Invisibility Cloak on her. Perhaps she would make a permanent home for it in her potions kit instead of simply carrying it around at Hogwarts.

Lestrange noticed her boots shimmering for a moment as the magic set in and grunted. "Good idea." He muffled his own shoes, then beckoned her into the hallway.

Harry didn't bother trying to keep track of where they were going. They took a completely different set of stairs down and crept through a passageway so small and dusty that she was almost certain it had been used by servants at some point in the castle's history. At the end of that passage, they stole through a library where all of the books were secured with chains. Harry tried not to think about the implications of that as she crept down another corridor after her guide.

He stopped abruptly, forcing her to still her momentum or bump into his back. After a moment of suspended motion in which she hardly dared to breathe, she heard what had stalled him. There were voices coming from up ahead.

She poked him in the shoulder, and when he turned around she mouthed, "Is there another way?"

He shook his head, grimacing. Pressing his back to the stone wall, he inched forward toward where their corridor intersected a wider one. Harry had no choice but to creep close behind him. The voices floating around the corner weren't necessarily familiar to her, but the context identified them for her. Rodolphus Lestrange was arguing with his wife. Heatedly.

"—said you _weren't_ interested."

Bellatrix's laughter rang through the castle corridors like a bell that had been dropped from its tower. It was disjointed and so unmelodic it sounded forced. "What's wrong, Rudy? Can't handle a little competition?"

"A man should not have to compete for his own _wife_." Lestrange senior did not sound as though he was entertained by his wife's humor in the slightest. "I want you off the council."

"Well, you'll have to kill me then, won't you?" Bellatrix spat.

If this ultimatum upset her son, he didn't show it. When Harry glanced at his face, it was as closed off as she'd ever seen it. He might have been listening to a poor rendition of a play he hadn't cared for, for all the emotion he displayed.

There was a thud that Harry recognized as a body impacting a hard surface, followed by a truncated gasp that she though might be indicative of someone choking. She moved forward a step without consciously telling her feet to do so, something inside of her instinctively rebelling against becoming a bystander to this, but Lestrange shot out a hand and gripped her arm tightly. She looked up at him, her face mulish. He shook his head slowly, eyes softening just enough to let her see his plea. He didn't want her to get involved.

The next sound was a man's pained grunt, followed by another broken-bell laugh from Madam Lestrange. This laugh had a hiss to it, though. "Don't kid yourself, Luv. You could never take me. And you'll _never_ control me."

"Control you?" Now Rodolphus was the one laughing, a slow, sinister sound. "I _own_ you."

Bellatrix scoffed. "You don't know what it means to possess a woman. Now Lord Riddle on the other hand…"

"You insolent _bitch_ —" Footsteps tapped out a staccato on the thin rug, but to Harry's utter relief they were fading in the opposite direction. Bellatrix's laughter was the last sound to fade before Lestrange let go of her arm and seemed to relax.

"They'll have gone to the East Wing; nothing valuable in those rooms," the boy muttered. She was not sure whether he was talking to her or himself, but when he began to move again, Harry followed. She was quite eager to get out of this castle and back home.

They stole along the larger corridor until it dead-ended in a wide staircase. The stairs led down to a set of stained glass doors that let in the setting sun and refracted the light in crystal patterns across the floor. Lestrange eased the knob and one of the doors swung silently inward. He motioned for Harry to slip out first, then shut the door behind them just as quietly. It struck Harry that he was good at this. How much practice had he had sneaking around in his own house?

Harry turned away from the house and found herself in a walled enclosure that was more jungle than garden. Lestrange led her off to the left, around tangled patches of flora and the occasional moss-laden tree. When they approached the wall Harry saw the door—it looked like the poor wooden thing had been waging a persistent war against an insurgency of vines, but the hinges were clear enough that it opened at Lestrange's hand without protest.

Beyond the door was the moor. Miles of green spread out over the rocky countryside like a damp blanket. "See that wooded valley over to the East?" Lestrange drew a line with his finger toward the horizon, indicated a dense copse some mile and a half distant. "You can't see it through the trees, but there's a river there that marks the edge of our property on this side. On the other side of the river, you can Portkey out."

Harry looked sideways at him, just to check that he was serious. He looked apologetic, which was so surprising in itself that Harry simply blinked. Lestrange, feeling bad about making someone else uncomfortable? She was too impressed with his show of humanity to be properly annoyed at being made to trek across the moor and… actually, how was she meant to cross the river? "Is there a bridge?" Harry asked, already resigning herself to the answer.

"Sorry, Potter." Lestrange sounded like he meant it.

Harry summoned a smile for his sake. It wasn't the boy's fault his parents had come home early from the Party function to squabble. "I missed my jog today anyway," she said, shrugging. "And I can float across with one of my Modified Weightless Draughts. The real question is; are the wards going to try to fry me on the way out?"

The dark-haired boy shook his head slowly. "They're anchored one-way, unlike the Floo," Lestrange said. He sounded sure, at least. "As long as you don't try to re-enter the wards once you cross the boundary, there won't be an issue." He glanced back at the castle distractedly. "I should go before I'm missed."

Harry nodded. She adjusted the potions kit so that it hung close to her body and held it steady with her left hand while holding her right up to give the older boy an ironic salute. "I'll get going, then." She let her hand fall, but hesitated before taking off. She couldn't help but worry a little. "Caelum," she began, wondering whether he would really be okay.

His face closed faster than a trap. "Get going, Halfblood. Don't strain your brain thinking about things you don't understand."

Harry held his gaze for another moment, but knew futility when it planted itself before her. "Thanks for brewing with me today, Lestrange. Good luck with Shaped Imbuing."

She took off at a steady pace and didn't look back.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

The last week of summer break, Harry sent a letter to Master Snape indicating that she had made sufficient strides on their new concept for Shaped Imbuing and requested a meeting to pool their ideas before she left for school. In preparation for the resulting appointment, Harry spent an afternoon tucked in her bedroom meditating. She had felt the jewel at work over the past couple of months, and had even stopped in briefly before going to see the Malfoys, but hadn't had time for a proper check up. Now she wanted to ensure that, despite the changes, her Occlumency and aura would pass muster both as Harry Potter and as Rigel Black.

The first thing she felt was heat. The mists faded into mirage, and the eyes of her avatar narrowed against the hazy glare of sunshine reflecting off a million grains of sand. The wind buffeted her form as she moved forward across the dunes, and it was all she could do to pull her sinking feet from the landscape with each step. She couldn't see anything ahead of her, and grains of sand came flying up to sting her face no matter which way she turned it. Had the jewel created a sandstorm in her mind?

She must have been struggling through the dunes for ten minutes before laughter she recognized twisted through her ears and made her halt, looking around wildly. "Are you going to fool around all day, Girl?"

Harry lifted an arm to cover her eyes while she searched for the magical construct, but it was nowhere to be seen. "Where are you?"

"Where you want to be," the jewel said. "But first you must defeat my illusion."

She frowned. An illusion? The sand and wind felt so real. Something about her stymied progress reminded her of something, though. Ginny's mind. That first time Harry had dropped in, she'd flown for ages through the air, only to find that she had never moved. That had been an illusion, too. Now she marshaled her thoughts and imagined herself at the center of her mind. The storm around her disappeared and the wind dropped to a gentle breeze against her face. Harry was at the base of a pyramid, but one so elevated and adorned that she could scarcely compare it to the basic structure she'd seen the last time she'd been present in her mindscape.

"Like it?" The jewel, wearing the guise of the dark-haired boy still, appeared beside her.

She gave it an appreciative grin. "It's a bit gaudy, isn't it?"

The pyramid had been lifted such that the original triangular structure was now sitting atop a base of massive stairs. At the apex of those enormous steps was a great entryway flanked by exquisitely carved sphinxes in repose. Jewels glinted where they had been embedded seemingly at random all over the monument, in every third block or so, emeralds and rubies that all seemed to be redirecting the light back into her eyes as she gazed in no small amount of awe at the work before her.

"The word you're looking for is _distracting_ ," the jewel said, pride in every syllable. "Look at the detail; admire the craftsmanship. Let the beauty dull your wariness and approach."

Harry had to smile at that. "It certainly looks real, you know? Not like it's a decoy layer of the mind at all."

"Exactly," the construct said happily. "No one would ever imagine that so much time and thoughtfulness would be paid to an illusion."

"I don't know; that sandstorm was pretty convincing."

"That's because it's real," the jewel said, turning to gesture over their shoulders.

Harry turned around and had to stare for a moment at the landscape below them. They'd been standing on a raised mound of land that she'd assumed was the bottom of her mind, but stretched out below her were the makings of a whole civilization. A city of adobe structures littered the space at the true base of the pyramid. Something like streets broke up the cramped housing and at the far edge of the little village she could see an imposing city wall with heavy golden gates. If she squinted past the gates, toward the horizon, she could just make out towering clouds of dust and wind at the edges of her mindscape. She supposed the mists would be beyond the ring of storms, but she couldn't see anything through them at this distance.

"The illusion was the perception that you were walking through the storm." The construct looked very pleased with itself. "Actually, the storm was moving around you. While you managed to will yourself out of it, that's mostly to do with it being your mind. An intruder will be stalled much longer," it assured her.

"Very nice," Harry said, approving. "And even once across the desert, a stranger would have to navigate through the winding city streets before they made it to the pyramid. Have you opened it up inside?" She turned back to give the entrance a closer look. The slabs that formed it were at least twice as tall as she was.

"Come and see," the construct said warmly. As it began the trek up who knew how many stairs, she couldn't help but think that it seemed happy, content with what it had built. "Stop thinking sappy thoughts." The jewel's face took on an admonishing look that somehow still conveyed rueful amusement. It was _really_ getting good at simulating humanity.

"How do you know what I'm thinking?" she asked, a little unnerved. "That's not the first time you've been able to tell."

"I can catch the gist of your thoughts when they are about me," the jewel informed her. At her uneasy look, its features took on a reassuring cast. "It's a good thing. If you work at it, you'll be able to communicate with me without having to meditate and project your consciousness inward."

Harry nodded. She did want to be able to do that, in case she needed to switch personas quickly. "Can I hear you, too?"

The construct nodded, pleased. "Yes. If you let me, I can warn you when your mind is under attack. Then, even if you're distracted or the attempt is very subtle, your secrets won't be vulnerable."

They'd reached the top of the stairs at last. The view was really incredible, she had to admit. There was something oddly beautiful about the desert. She took a step toward the shadowed entrance, remarking, "No door?" Before she could approach any closer, the sphinxes on either side of the passage sprang into motion and barred her way. The large red stones set into their eye sockets gleamed at her as she froze. "Are they sentient?" she asked, trying to remember if she'd allowed that or not.

"Not precisely," the construct admitted. It took her wrist and held her hand toward the sphinx on the right. "They won't tell riddles, if that's what you're hoping. I have given them an attacking instinct that is much like the real thing, however." That did not ease her nerves as her avatar's fingers were placed gently on the sphinx's temple, just between its eyes. She could feel the warmth of the magic that was animating the creature. It thrummed under her touch, and she recognized it as her own.

The sphinxes both smiled and for a moment she could see past the blood-colored eyes to the lovely feminine features that nevertheless came across fierce and wild in stone. Each rose from its menacing crouch, and sat tall, their lioness bottom halves no less graceful for the rough material from which they'd been hewn. "Weren't the Egyptian sphinxes male?"

"Anachronism is half the fun. Don't overthink it. They will protect your secrets and maim your enemies," the jewel said, patting one fondly on the cheek as it passed the golem toward the pyramid's entrance.

"If they scare intruders as well as they surprised me, I'll be very impressed." Harry _was_ impressed. The Dominion Jewel had accomplished much with limited resources and not insignificant patience, she deduced.

"That was them playing nice," the construct laughed. "They just wanted to say hello. Normally they would greet with claws and teeth."

Harry made a mental note to not bring anyone into her mindscape without considerable preparation. They passed through a stone archway adorned with a mix of hieroglyphs and runes that she couldn't decipher at one glance. Only a few steps into the pyramid, all light seemed to vanish. Even the sound of the wind outside was gone. She couldn't see the door anymore, though she knew she hadn't moved that far from it. Another illusion? She willed a light into existence, and fire lit in the palm of her hand to illuminate the room around her.

Her guide was nowhere to be seen. Instead, she was in a small stone chamber no more than five feet across. It was empty, and there were no doors or windows of any kind. She turned slowly in a circle. She wasn't sure how she could have come to be there, though she was pretty sure she could will her way out. It was still her mind, no matter what the jewel had done to the place.

She walked toward a wall and began feeling along it for cracks or anomalies that would reveal a hidden passage. There was nothing. "All right, I give up. What am I supposed to do now?"

The construct appeared beside her in an instant and grinned. "Do you like it? A trap for any who make it past the guards."

"How did I trigger it?" she asked.

"You didn't," the jewel said. "I did. It's not a physical trap, so there's no way to avoid it. I simply swapped the layers of your mind."

Her eyebrows rose. "So this is my mountainscape? I didn't notice the transition. Shouldn't I be in my lab, then, or the tunnels beneath?"

The construct shook its head. "I offset the two layers. Now, your position in one does not necessarily correspond to your position in the other. I can move people in and out of rooms with no exits, crush them under the mountain itself, or pop them back out into the sandstorm, all depending on where they wander inside the labyrinth that is now your mind."

"Amazing," she said. "Is there anything in the pyramid besides traps?"

"Of course. I do reign here when it's the primary layer," the jewel said. With a snap of his fingers, they were back in the entryway to the pyramid. Now she could see the light coming from the doorway behind them. Her construct raised its hands grandly and a number of torches ignited on sconces before them. The torches led the way down a long corridor. Harry walked until the passage ended in a golden door. She reached for the handle, but the construct stayed her hand. "It's a decoy. Nothing but a pit of vipers that way."

"Snakes?" Harry wondered if she was destined to be surrounded by them.

"They aren't sentient," the construct assured her. "They can't be persuaded to do anything but bite. You do have an enemy who speaks the serpent tongue."

She didn't deny it. Harry watched as the construct drew a single rune on the wall to the right of the golden door. The wall rumbled and a section of it sank into the floor, revealing another corridor, this one with steps leading up.

"Most of the passageways in the labyrinth will lead the intruder down. The dangers increase as each is surmounted. Some rooms contain unlikely traps, some straightforward threats, and the very bottom level is designed to collapse as a last resort if necessary." The jewel explained all this as they climbed and paused when they reached a landing. "Any passages leading up are well hidden."

It opened another door, this time in the low ceiling. When the stone above their heads moved aside, a ladder descended just enough for the jewel to reach the first rung and hoist itself up. Harry climbed up after it and emerged in an enormous square hall with a tapered ceiling so steep she figured they must be near the top of the pyramid.

In the center of the grand space was a raised pedestal and on it sat a carving of a woman with a lioness's head. The animalistic face conveyed both strength and wisdom. A poised cobra sat atop her brow, and a disk of gold illuminated the statue's head from behind. Harry was drawn to the statue, though she couldn't say why.

"Who is she?" Harry asked, trying to remember what she'd dug up on Egyptian culture the previous year while researching the Dominion Jewel.

"That is Sekhmet," the jewel said softly, circling the statue in a slow, thoughtful way. "Daughter of Ra. She protects the pharaohs in times of war. It is said that Sekhmet's breath created the desert."

"She sounds fierce," Harry said, studying the stone features with interest.

"Sekhmet is a warrior goddess, but also a goddess of healing. Her sign is the sun. It seemed… fitting." There was an almost uncomfortable look on the construct's face, now. She wondered that it seemed capable of awkwardness.

"Very fitting," Harry agreed. She liked the idea of a lioness protecting her mind. "Thank you for building all of this. You've done wonderfully." She focused for a moment and willed a ball of her magic to manifest separately from her core. It bloomed into being on her fingertips, and she held it out toward the jewel with a smile. "Here."

With an awe-filled gaze, the construct moved forward to take it reverently. It consumed the little sphere of fire with an expression close to rapture. "Thank you."

"You earned it… Dom." She grimaced a bit at the startled look it gave her.

"A name?" The jewel had the oddest of frowns.

"It's less pompous than calling yourself Dominion," Harry said, turning her grimace into a smile. "And I can't keep calling you 'jewel' in my head."

"Dom…" the boy—for he _was_ a boy, in seeming and in persona, no matter what he'd been before—smiled faintly. "Very well, Harriet."

It was progress. She left her sentient construct with instructions to practice getting her attention while she wasn't meditating. Soon she would have to see to the suppression of her aura once more, but she had one more thing to take care of as Harry Potter first.

-0

[SsSsSs]

-0

The last time Severus Snape had seen Harriet Potter, the stubborn girl had been an enigma wrapped in a mystery, covered again in a glaringly obvious white sheet. Her prevarications had been prickly and her self-assurance weak. Looking at her now as he collected her from the Guild's lobby, he knew something had changed. The would-be potioneer held her head higher, her back straighter, and the confidence that she had once stacked through sheer willpower upon her shoulders had settled into a true mantle sometime in the past two months.

"I've booked a lab, though this meeting is primarily to discuss preliminary research findings," Severus told the girl.

She nodded once and followed him toward the stairs with a simple, "Thank you for coming, sir."

As they descended into the laboratory levels, Severus allowed his mind to pick through his observations about the girl thus far. His initial impression of the Potter chit had been that she and Rigel were entirely different in nature. Potter was blunt where Rigel was polite. The girl's face was open and arrogant, as though she expected others to like and accept her without reservation. His student, on the other hand, was always more reserved, his face closed and his actions more careful than not.

After multiple interactions, however, Severus was beginning to see more similarities than he expected. She and Rigel both craved recognition, regardless of whether they admitted it. Both young brewers had a tendency to lie first, equivocate second, divert the conversation third, and only when faced with absolutely no alternative begrudgingly part with a modicum of truth. The two young adults hoarded secrets as if they were diamonds, and Potter, just like Rigel, had seemed genuinely surprised and offended at the idea that anyone would attempt to pry those secrets into the light.

Little things tugged at his memory, too. When brewing the Modified Weightless Draught at their last meeting, Potter diced her stalks from root to tip, without discarding any of the ugly bits as many brewers, even professional ones, often did. It was natural to discard the gnarled ends and stringy tips from ingredients when preparing, as one did when cooking, but Potter cut to the very end of her roots. Rigel cut to the end of his roots, too. Severus did not know what it meant—that they were as close as each implied, perhaps. They certainly must work closely with one another, as it seemed to him that even the angle at which Potter tilted her head when she stirred had been similar to Rigel's favored brewing posture.

Severus reached no new conclusions about the girl and her relationship to his protégé before they arrived at the small lab he'd secured for the hour. It was a teaching lab, with a decent sized chalkboard and plenty of spare parchment should they require it.

He pulled his research file from his pocket and enlarged it so that his gleanings could be spread on the central workstation between them. Tapping his finger on the topmost sheaf, he said, "I've revised the recipe for our enhanced variable base, reordering certain steps in order to take into account your suggestion that the signifying ingredient and the shaped magic be added simultaneously to the cauldron. You are correct to theorize that this will focus the amplification on the property of the signifying ingredient that best aligns with the type of magic being imbued."

The girl nodded slowly, a slight smile that she didn't seem to notice pulling at her mouth. "That's good. Now we aren't limited to signifying ingredients that have a single, straightforward magical property. If someone wanted to use mermaid fluke, they shouldn't have to wonder whether the variable base would amplify its hyperthermic or hypothermic properties."

He raised an eyebrow, but made no comment on the unusual example. "Indeed. As long as the magic that is Shape-Imbued speaks to a certain property, that is what the recipe will now choose to augment." He gestured to the rest of the parchment on the counter, "These notes represent the extent of my current experimentations with basilisk scale, and the comparative effectiveness of using more common alternatives, such as dragon eggshell, in its place."

He watched the girl's face as she scanned through his file at a rate that told him she was accustomed to deciphering cramped penmanship. "I have a couple of ideas on enhanced protection potions, as well," she said, still reading even as she addressed him. "My father told me the DMLE wants to buy the patent rights to the disruptor potion I've been selling as an antidote to the protection potion. Apparently they think that if the protection potion reaches mainstream notice, criminals will begin carrying around the disruptor potion just in case."

Severus scowled. The Ministry never missed an opportunity to leverage creative breakthroughs to its advantage. "You refused, of course." He wouldn't put it past the DMLE to attempt to outlaw the sale of the potion altogether if they were unable to procure exclusive rights to it, but if the girl had the sense to stall they had time to get ahead of the issue.

Potter shrugged. "I never patented it, so it's a moot point. It got me thinking, though, that there is a serious market for a protection potion that _can't_ be negated with the general counter-potion. Like a true ward, what if we could tie an individual protection potion to the user?"

His mind raced ahead of her explanation; he was nodding before she'd even finished. "Each set of protection potion and disruptor potion could be custom made as a pair. Many would pay extra for a whiff of real security." An endeavor like that could fund the rest of their research, and was certainly worth exploring.

The girl looked up at him with hesitation glinting behind her spectacles, but whatever she saw in his face loosened her tongue. "I hadn't considered trying to create differently matched sets for each commission. I was thinking more along the lines of still mass-producing the potion, but reworking it so that the signifying ingredient was tied to the individual. I was thinking… what if it worked with blood?"

She could not have surprised him more if she'd suggested they use puppy tails. "Blood," he repeated. "You think this is going to be palatable to the DMLE?"

Potter was aware enough of the fine line she walked to wince at his drawling cynicism. "It seems a bit… unsavory on the surface, but after all the research I've done, it makes the most sense. Blood contains trace magic from a person's core, and as such can be matched to a person exactly, like a fingerprint. All the best permanent home wards are at least partially blood-based. Using it in the protection potion means that when the shield is erected, the person whose blood went into the potion can walk in and out of the shield at will."

"I am aware of how blood identification works," Severus reminded her.

She nodded impatiently. "Then you understand the implications. If we can get the process right, the new potion ward will recognize an individual's magical signature once formed, and one wouldn't have to remain inside the shield until a disruptor was applied. They can put it up around whatever they want to protect and come and go repeatedly. And," the girl added, warming up to her argument with glowing fervor, "since the potion is basically a miniature blood ward itself at that point, a generic disruptor potion like the one I've been using wouldn't be able to dissolve it. You would need the same exact blood or magical signature to undo it."

"You're still talking about making blood magic accessible to the masses," he said flatly. "This type of ward is dangerous."

"Only because people don't understand what they're doing," Potter said, not seeming to comprehend that the advanced, complex nature of the theories she was playing with was exactly the prohibitive barrier that dangerous magic _should_ have. "I'm talking about doing the hard work _for_ people. Like with Polyjuice, it'll be a matter of 'just add X' and the average witch or wizard can erect secure, flexible protection around whatever they want, with the added benefit of being able to undo those protections at a whim as long as they put the same blood into both the protection potion and the disruptor. Not even real wards can be undone on the fly. You need a Wardmaster both to set up and tear them down." When he simply stared at her, caught up in his thoughts on the potential of such an idea, the messy-haired chit had the nerve to plant her hands on the countertop and lean over the workstation toward him as though she could intimidate him into agreeing with her via sheer proximity. "It's no different than the trunks they sells down the street that come with configurable theft protection—some of those spells use blood identification, too!"

Severus narrowed his gaze and the girl hastily retreated to her own side of the counter. "I don't deny that such a thing will appeal to certain sects," he allowed after a pointed pause. In truth he wondered if she'd had purebloods in mind when she envisioned the result. A portable blood ward was inspired; there was no question of finding a market. There was also no question that a product like the one she described would be misused in every way imaginable. The real question was whether the girl had the stomach to go through with it anyway. "Have you considered the consequences? Blood wards are nigh impenetrable when properly generated. You are putting this ability into the hands of Aurors and criminals alike. At least when a Wardmaster erects wards, he can be tasked to take them down should a warrant for such dissolution be procured."

Potter blinked at him. "Are you suggesting that I am responsible for all who use my potion? Anything can be misappropriated, but I think the potential good uses outweigh the evil. I see what you mean about it creating a kind of cheat for the protection of illegal goods or deeds. Do you think I should build a failsafe into the product? I should think that, if it ever became known, such a vulnerability would make the potion much less valuable."

"I suggest nothing," Severus said. His tone conveyed greater unconcern than he felt, but this was not his choice to make. The girl would have to navigate the perils of invention by herself, if she was truly to make her mark on the field. "I am merely ensuring that you account for all potential ramifications should you choose to go ahead with this project. If you require my honest opinion, it is this: you will make a fortune off this idea, if you can execute it as you claim." She would make enemies, too, but he suspected the girl was smart enough to figure that out for herself.

"I shall think more on it then," she said. Her hand ran through her fringe in a gesture that was so like Rigel it sent a spark of déjà vu down his spine. "For now, though, I did have one more idea. This one, at least, will be hard to find nefarious use for." Potter reached into the bag at her side and pulled out several scrolls before weighing them down flat on the table for his perusal. The first was a drawing of what appeared to be a small box with expandable sides, not unlike a fisherman's tackle box. Notations down the side and continuing onto the next several pages described its contents.

"A first-aid kit?" He skimmed down the potions she'd listed in the margin but didn't recognize a single one. They weren't potions, he realized after brief consideration, but healing _spells_. His breath caught for an instance. "Inspired." The word escaped him before he could check it. She wanted to imbue advanced healing magic into their variable base, paired with a signifying ingredient with related properties, in order to provide emergency medical aid in lieu of a Healer. It was impossible, and yet… what if it wasn't? It would revolutionize the medicine cabinets of every household in Magical Britain. None of the spells or proposed products she'd enumerated currently existed in potion form. A wizard might keep a painkiller or Blood-Replenisher around the house for any chance injuries, but most maladies still required a trip to St. Mungo's to get properly healed. "This might be impossible," he said. There was no need to get carried away in what-ifs just yet. "Have you experimented with any of these yet?"

Potter nodded, pushing one of the pages closer toward him. "The epidermal salve was almost easy. I used the old base, so it can be made more effective later, I think, but the way magic is shaped for knitting and regenerating skin is consistent no matter what type of injury it is. I've healed a lot of cuts and scrapes and even burns, so the Shaped Imbuing didn't take much practice to get right."

She took out a jar containing a thin, watery substance from her pocket and opened it. Before he could think to stay her hand, she'd palmed a small knife from seemingly thin air and pricked her finger with it. The knife vanished with a twist of her wrist and Severus had to push his questions on that to the side as the girl poured a small trickle of the clear liquid over her injured finger. Potter held her hand perfectly still for a few moments, then wiped her finger clean on the hem of her sleeve and held it up to his gaze. The skin was unblemished. It was not the most ostentatious of demonstrations, but Severus felt the wind leave his lungs on a long exhale nonetheless. This discovery was going to ripple through a number of communities, of which Potions and Healing were only the beginning.

"I know I need to add a thickener, if it is to be distributed as a proper salve," the girl was saying. How could she prattle so blithely after upending a stone of this magnitude into the pond of innovation? "I wanted to get the recipe right first, though. With your new base, I think I can use something like unicorn hair to good effect as a signifying ingredient. The more powerful concoctions might need something stronger, though. Phoenix tears, maybe? Those are hard to preserve, though, aren't they?"

Severus ignored the girl's query and looked her dead in the eye. "Have you shared this idea with anyone else?"

"Just Rigel," she said, blinking at him like a bespectacled owl once more. "I got some of the idea from him, actually, after he came home from his internship and described how difficult it was to get quality health care to people in remote areas."

"Fine," he said. "Tell no one else. Continue to research and I will inquire _quietly_ about the licensing requirements for creating medical products such as you propose."

"So you do think it's a good use of Shaped Imbuing?" Potter smiled at him in a way that told him she had no idea the kind of attention she was going to receive if this worked.

"It will certainly generate interest in the field," he drawled.

"Great! As that was the primary purpose of our experimentation this summer, I shall consider our first collaboration a success, Master Snape." The girl was beaming now as she began stacking the parchment on the workstation. "Can I keep these notes on protective signifying ingredients? You can have the ones I brought on blood protection potions as well as what I've got so far on the advanced healing kit. I'll owl you if I get a solid breakthrough, but barring that… would you be open to meeting again over the winter holiday? I understand if you're busy with the term starting again and all—"

"That is acceptable." Severus cut the girl off before she babbled his sanity away. He needed to focus on the myriad possibilities he'd been presented that morning. Their endeavor required more research. And a solicitor, no doubt. At Potter's expectant look, he paused his racing thoughts long enough to say, somewhat stiffly, "An excellent start, Miss Potter. I expect to see at least as much progress when we meet again. Expect my owl as I uncover more information about the regulations this experimentation may face."

"Just Harry is fine," the girl said. Her eyes were thoughtful as she added, "We'll have to arrange human trials, won't we? And acquire some sort of liability insurance, too?"

"I will take care of that, Miss Potter." Severus was certainly not going to call the girl by her first name just because she was poised to utterly upend the magical medical industry in a single swoop. "Just focus on research and application."

"All right," she said, smiling brightly at him again. He could not remember the last time someone had bared their teeth in his direction so unreservedly. "Thank you for all your guidance and collaboration, sir. I look forward to seeing you again this winter."

She left, carrying a bag full of revolutionary ideas with her, and Severus simply sat, and thought, and let the ideas spill forth from his quill for the next twenty minutes. He had expected to spend the morning carefully explaining his summer research and firmly advising the Potter girl on what boundaries of the field she'd scratched out the year before should be focused on for expansion. Instead, she'd surprised him again. Rather than solely attempting to improve that which she'd already created, she came to him with new ideas. Insane ideas. Contagious ideas.

If this was the sort of mad ingenuity the girl could come up with when her interest was invoked, he would fuel the fire of her creativity for as long as she allowed. Let the girl keep her newfound confidence. From what he'd seen today, Potter would damn well earn that pride.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

Harry rode the high of her successful meeting with Snape for several days. She was a bit embarrassed to catch herself humming cheerfully as she completed the last of Krait's summer brewing quota, but she was too happy to help it. The day before she and Archie were to leave for the start of term, Harry loaded her arms with crates and made her way to Knockturn Alley for her final delivery.

She was in such a good mood she took a moment to really thank Krait for all he'd done for her. "It's hard to believe it's been three years, but it's really meant a lot to me to be able to brew and have my potions taken seriously," she told him. She had to smile at his gruff embarrassment as he coughed uncomfortably and averted his eyes.

"I didn't do anything except make a profit."

"You took a chance on an unknown brewer." Harry let her gratitude show in her eyes as she waited for him to glance back at her from over the counter. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." He let his expression settle into something like fondness for a moment, then sniffed and turned back to the ledger he had been balancing. "Best take a crate of empties when you go. You know you'll be wanting to brew when you get home on holiday."

Harry agreed, and grabbed a crate of empty bottles from the backroom before leaving the shop. Knockturn Alley wasn't particularly crowded that afternoon, so it was easy to spot Leo's loitering form under an awning across the way. She thought back to the first time they'd met, in that very alley, before she'd understood the dangers of the world she had unwittingly joined. Leo hadn't changed all that much. The same handsome face that grinned as though he held a secret between his teeth. The same ropey build that was just a tad too tall to be stocky. The same eyes, lit with an irrepressible amusement, that looked at her as though she was something more than just a girl who liked potions.

She waited in the middle of the alley as he pushed off the wall and met her with an easy smile. "Headed off tomorrow, aren't you?" he asked. His hand extended to take the crate from her, but Harry moved it out of his reach with a smile of her own.

"I've got it," she assured him. "And yes, tomorrow I'm headed back to the States."

"Try to write this year," he said, walking next to her as she began the trek back to the Leaky Cauldron.

"I will," she said, vowing mentally to actually keep her promise this year. "Even if I don't though, I always read your letters, you know."

Leo smiled at her sidelong and nodded. "I know, lass." They walked a few yards in silence before Leo asked, somewhat unexpectedly, "Did you have a good summer?"

Harry hadn't considered the summer as a whole, but she thought, after a brief consideration, that it _had_ been good. She felt lighter going into her fourth year than she had any of the previous summers. She'd finally come to terms with her magic, and had used it cooperatively with her training from both Leo and Remus. She'd proven to her family at the World Cup that her potions were more than an interesting hobby. Her father's own office used a potion she'd invented, which was something she never could have imagined coming to pass.

She had also given back to the community. She was collaborating with Snape, teaching Lestrange, tutoring the alley kids, and brewing potions for the Maywell clinic. She felt good about what she'd accomplished. Why, she'd even come to an understanding with the Dominion Jewel. After all that, she could honestly say, "It's been the best summer yet."

When they passed through the entryway to Diagon Alley, into the small area between the hidden archway and the Leaky Cauldron's backdoor, Leo made an apologetic noise and stopped to fish a small roll of parchment from his pocket.

"Almost forgot." He tilted his head sheepishly. "Mum asked me to pass this along. A list of potions the clinic has trouble getting hold of, as requested."

Harry's eyes widened with interest. She'd asked Mrs. Hurst if there were other potions like Seifer's Solution that were difficult for her to procure. One of her projects this term was to research the licenses required for specialized distribution. She wiggled the fingers of her left hand without releasing her hold on the crate completely. "Could you…?" She expected him to slip it into that hand, but instead he leaned over and tucked the scroll gently behind her left ear. "Thanks," she said, her voice a bit weak with surprise. Clearing her throat, she added, "If you ever need anything for the clinic or the alleys, I'm just an owl away, ok?"

Leo's eyes searched hers with unmistakable intensity. "You know, it goes both ways. The alleys look after their own, but more importantly, I'll look after you, if you ever need it. I know you don't want me to," he added, correctly interpreting her huff, "but that doesn't stop me caring."

"You don't have to worry about me," she said, a faint blush creeping over her nose and cheeks as their proximity and his bright-eyed affection registered in her awareness.

"I couldn't turn it off even if I tried," he confessed quietly. "I know I sometimes treat it lightly, and I don't want to make you uncomfortable, but my regard for you is completely serious, Harry."

She was barely aware of the red flush extending to burn over the rest of her face as her breath caught unwillingly. Why did he have to go and say that? She waited for the surprise to register, then bit her lip as she realized that, if she truly examined their interactions honestly, she'd known how Leo felt for a while. She'd been ignoring the hints and even outright remarks in the hope that she would not have to confront her own feelings directly.

The vulnerability in Leo's gaze shamed her somewhat. Leo was brave, and she wasn't sure she could match that bravery, but it was disrespectful to him for her not to try. And if nothing else, she was certain of her respect for Leo. Thinking about it like that, there was a lot she admired about the older boy: his drive to better himself and the world, his conscientious awareness of and care for the people around him, his confident leadership, and his willingness to take responsibility for those less capable than himself.

Second to and quite apart from his objectively admirable qualities, there were personal things she liked about their relationship, too. Leo had never judged her for anything but her own merit. Her magic never unnerved him. Her blood status never interested him. Her youth, sex, family, none of it had dissuaded him from befriending and supporting her from the beginning. Even her secrets, a point of friction between her and the world in so many of her other relationships, only concerned Leo insofar as they pertained to his concern for her.

All this went through her mind as she stood there dumbly, not knowing what to do because, for all that, she still didn't know if her feelings for Leo were of the level and nature that he hoped. She didn't _not_ like him, but she had always felt that her life held no room for romance. It was, at best, a distraction. At worst it would prove dangerous to the deceptions and assumptions that her plans were predicated upon. But how to express such an unsatisfying sentiment? It would be easier, she thought ruefully, if she had no interest in Leo at all. She could simply tell him so and hope their friendship would settle back into what it had been. Harry could not bear to lie to her friend about her potential feelings for him, however. She felt that such a lie would somehow be worse than all the ones that had come before.

Leo was, as always, perceptive. He must have read the hesitation and uncertainty in her increasingly distressed expression, for he summoned a brave little smile and shook his head slowly. "It's all right, Harry. You don't have to… I don't expect anything from you in response. I just couldn't let you go off again without making myself clear."

She nodded, grateful and humbled by his understanding. Words seemed impossible to form as her throat closed up against the emotions running through her, but she managed a choked, "Thank you," before her brain decided breathing was more important than talking and cut off any further attempts at articulation.

She turned her lower body and took a hesitant step toward the Leaky's backdoor, but her eyes remained fixed on the friend that had come to mean so much to her over the past three years. What had just happened? Was their friendship somehow different, now?

Leo shooed her away with a crooked grin. "Go on, then. Don't be afraid to come back after this."

Harry bristled, and the sudden indignation found her voice. "I'm not afraid of anything, Lionel Hurst, least of all you." She moved to lean on the door before she could work herself up into any more emotional states and gave her exasperating friend a prim nod. "See you."

"Be careful this year."

She was always careful, she thought despairingly as she left. It just never seemed to do her any good.

-0—0—0

-0—0

-0

[end of chapter five].


	6. Chapter 6

**The Futile Façade:**

 **Chapter 6:**

There was something about the first of September that made anticipation crackle like lightning in her stomach. It wasn't just the Modified Polyjuice that she'd taken that morning, though the unpleasant sludge wasn't helping. It was the air itself, the barest chill in the morning that anticipated the turn of the season. She smoothed the school robes she'd already changed into and took a final glance in the mirror to make sure all was in order before she joined the others in their compartment.

Rigel's face hadn't changed at all from the beginning of the summer. Unfortunately, it had been impossible to update her Modified Polyjuice due to simple logistics. She had just been at Draco's house as Rigel, and didn't think she could pass off the dramatic shift in a space of a few weeks as unconscious metamorphing when 'Harry' hadn't undergone a sudden growth spurt in the same period. They would have to make do with waiting until next summer to update it properly; perhaps she and Archie would both have long absences abroad.

She'd still opted to take another dose of Modified Polyjuice, using the same hairs as the dose she'd taken at the beginning of the summer. She'd learned her lesson with the time-turner last year. Even though there was no reason to think she'd have to go longer than the end of term to take another dose, Rigel wasn't going to make such assumptions again.

Finding nothing amiss, Rigel left the bathroom and made her way down the train until she reached the compartment her friends favored. For once, she was the last to arrive. Pansy rose to greet her at once, the fierce smile on her face enough to warm Rigel's spirit even before the other girl wrapped Rigel in a firm embrace.

"Let me look at you," Pansy said, holding Rigel still with her hands while she examined her. "You've changed a lot, as usual." Rigel supposed from Pansy's perspective, she had. Pansy had last seen her at the end of term, before over a year and a half of compressed time had caught up to her. Luckily, she still looked a bit younger than she should, since she was older than her cousin now and the blending ritual averaged their ages to create the hair she used to assume her current face. Then again, her friends had all grown up a bit over the summer, too.

"You're one to talk," Rigel said, her eyes roaming over Pansy's features. The blonde girl's bone structure was more defined this year, as it looked like she'd lost most of the roundness in her face. As Pansy tilted her head and smiled, Rigel could see that her friend's poised expressions now had a face to match. Sometimes she forgot that Pansy was nearly a year older than her and Draco—or had been, in Rigel's case.

Pansy released her, but her eyes didn't leave Rigel's face as she asked, more seriously, "Are you doing all right, Rigel?"

She couldn't pretend not to know what Pansy meant, but she didn't really want to talk about that. Sirius had already made a minor fuss on the platform. He was deeply concerned with his son returning to Hogwarts after what had happened last year, though he tried not to show it. Rigel gave Pansy the same answer she'd given Sirius. "Never better." Honestly, she thought she'd be a lot better if people stopped bringing it up. Yes, she'd had a bad experience at Hogwarts last year, but the same could be said of every year so far. Despite that, there were far more good memories for her at Hogwarts than bad.

"How was everyone's summer?" she asked as she took the last remaining seat next to Millicent and across from Blaise.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Theo's suggestive tone was accompanied by wagging eyebrows, which prompted Millicent to punch him in the arm and scowl.

"Not anymore we don't." The dark-haired girl was a couple inches taller and her voice had a lower, smoother quality to it than Rigel remembered. "I spent the summer abroad," Millicent added. "My father took me to Geneva with him to further my political education."

"Were you there after the World Cup?" Blaise asked, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. As always, the intensity of his calculating, somewhat cat-like eyes distracted from any attempt to catalogue the rest of him, but Rigel still got the impression that he, too, was a bit taller.

Millicent nodded, grimacing. "What a fiasco. The British Ministry's reputation has never been worse. We insisted on controlling the event, and now it's come back to bite us."

"I hear Bulgaria has incinerated a number of our trade agreements," Theo said.

"They weren't the only ones." Blaise made a token attempt to sound concerned, but the primary expression on his face was fascination. "Several European nations have expressed reservations about doing business with Britain in the wake of an event many perceive to be destabilizing."

"Idiots," Draco said, shaking his head. "They'll regret that. My father says there's something big in the works that's going to make all this go away."

Millicent sat up straighter in her seat. "My father hinted along similar lines! Do you know what's going on? All I've gathered is that it involves Hogwarts in some way. It must be something monumental, if they want to sweep the World Cup disaster under the rug quickly."

"Father wouldn't give me specifics," Draco admitted. "He kept saying I'd find out soon enough. Then he started showing up to my dueling practice and giving me pointers. I can't fathom that he wants me involved in anything going on at that high a level, though."

"Very suspicious," Blaise agreed. "Mother hasn't said anything, but then, she rarely interests herself in politics beyond the social gatherings."

"Father told me to keep my head down this year," Pansy said, frowning slightly. "I did think it odd, but it makes sense if something big is happening at Hogwarts. Is the Party organizing it, then?"

Draco nodded. "Lord Riddle made it sound as though it was the Ministry's doing, but the way he and Father talked about it, I could tell it was meant to further our agenda somehow. Don't you think, Rigel?"

Rigel kept her face carefully neutral as she said, "Most likely. No doubt the Ministry is supporting it in order to recoup their losses from the World Cup." She was going to say something more, but a sharp pain in her head distracted her. She winced minutely and pushed her thoughts toward the likely perpetrator. _Dom, not a good time to practice._

The jewel had been working on communicating with her sans meditation, as promised. So far, he didn't seem to have a good way to get her attention without pain, though the discomfort had been reduced with each successive time the construct attempted it. Dom's reply floated up in the back of her mind softly, like a bubble of air rising to the surface of a lake before popping. _Not practicing._

Rigel fought not to frown. A real warning? She was on the middle of the Hogwarts Express, for Merlin's sake. None of her friends even had sustained eye contact—how could she be under mental attack? She caught Draco glancing at her furtively from across the isle and suspicion bloomed. Was Dom picking up on Draco's empathy? Had Draco scanned her emotions to try and get an idea of how she felt about Riddle's plans? Rigel summoned her Occlumency skills and smoothed her emotions into utter calmness. After a few moments, the slight headache receded and she assumed whatever it was Dom was reacting to had stopped.

She'd only been distracted for a minute, so the conversation was easy to rejoin. Millicent was saying that the Ministry was desperate to look as though it was in control, so the big event their parents had hinted at must be a way to save face.

"It's about money for the Ministry," Rigel said, remembering what she was going to say earlier. "The Department of Games and Sports is bankrupt. All that personal property loss at the Cup means lawsuits and thousands of demands for refunds. Whatever Riddle has planned, if it brings in revenue, the Ministry will support it completely. Harry says her dad has a hand in some of the preparations, too, so this thing is at least big enough to warrant professional security." Her father had intimated as much when she'd prodded Archie into asking James if he should expect to see him at Hogwarts that year. James had awkwardly said he wasn't at liberty to confirm anything, which essentially confirmed it. If the Auror Department was involved, the Ministry was giving Riddle their full cooperation.

Her friends all exchanged wary looks. "That makes it sound like it could be a spectator event of some kind," Theo said slowly. "Making money usually means asking for donations or charging for something."

"And either one requires the same thing: _press_ ," Millicent said.

Draco scowled. "How troublesome. We'll have no peace."

"We'll be expected to put a very good face on," Pansy added, nodding slowly. "It explains Father's advice, too. With the anti-pureblood backlash from the Cup, we can't afford to draw too much attention to ourselves in front of the media."

Theo huffed a sigh. "All plans for a quiet year foiled before it even begins. Face it; we're cursed."

"What do you mean 'we'?" Blaise sent Rigel a half-lidded look.

Draco and Pansy both bristled on her behalf.

"You can't blame Rigel for—"

"How dare you suggest such a—"

The compartment door slid open, cutting off the their outrage. A head of yellow pigtails poked in shyly and a pair of wide eyes swept the compartment slowly before resting on Blaise. "Um. Hi," she squeaked out, voice barely above a whisper.

"Hannah." Their dark friend stood gracefully and smiled. "Excellent timing. Shall we?"

He shot a small smirk over his shoulder as he exited the compartment with the Hufflepuff girl in tow. Pansy shot him a resigned glare and Draco looked positively murderous.

"He did that on purpose," Draco snarled.

"Enhanced shifter hearing," Theo said, nodding sagely. "Probably knew she was coming all the way down the train car."

"I thought her relatives didn't approve of Blaise," Millicent said, a contemplative frown on her face. "Last I heard their families haven't reconciled."

"He doesn't care," Theo said, shrugging. "Blaise chose her, and he'll keep at it until he gets his way."

Millicent quirked an eyebrow at Theo. "Perhaps Blaise is more like his mother than I realized. I've heard Lady Zabini always gets what she wants, too."

Pansy shook her head. "Careful what you suggest, Millie. Lady Zabini also has a tendency to outlast her critics."

As a group, they agreed it would be best to change the subject. The afternoon wore into early evening, and Rigel was just contemplating a nap when their compartment door opened again, this time for the Weasley twins. Rigel assumed they were there to see her, but to her chagrin both Fred and George zeroed in on Draco with Kneazle smiles.

Draco scowled at them, but rose unprompted and retrieved a substantial sack from his trunk. With the dignity only possessed by the truly annoyed, Draco handed it over to Fred's eager possession with barely a sniff.

"What a pleasure doing business with you, Draco," Fred said cheerfully, bouncing the sack to produce a clinking noise that made him grin even wider.

Rigel watched Draco's eyebrow twitch at being addressed so casually by the redhead, but to his credit he did not rise to the bait. "Try not to lose it on your way out," he said stiffly, reclaiming his seat in open dismissal of the twins.

"How's it been, Rigel?" George asked, quite obviously not in a hurry to leave.

"Just fine, you?"

"Oh, you know, a little experimentation here, a minor re-purposing of the kitchen there." George shrugged. "We're pretty sure Mum would have kicked us out of the house if we'd been of age."

"There's always next year," she said encouragingly.

Fred and George laughed. "Good to see you, Pup," Fred said, saluting her as he pocketed the sack of galleons at last.

"See you around," George added, waving facetiously to the rest of the compartment before he and Fred took their leave.

When the compartment door shut behind them, Theo could no longer contain himself. "What did you do to owe the _Weasleys_ that many galleons?"

"Shut. Up." Draco turned his face to the window and would say no more.

Mischievously, Rigel leaned around Millicent to mouth _tell you later_. She was impressed with her friend for keeping his end of the wager, but that didn't meant she wasn't going to let him be teased mercilessly for falling for it in the first place.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

Rigel kept an eye on Draco as they settled at the Slytherin table in the Great Hall and awaited the Sorting. He was much more put together than the previous year. He looked comfortable in his own skin, and she was pleased that he seemed fully capable of controlling the emotive input his gift provided even in the moderately rowdy crowd of excitable returning students.

She was a bit fatigued from her menstrual cycle once again making an appearance. It had taken a couple of months to re-regulate her body after stopping her time-turner use, but she was back to her usual schedule now. She just wished they'd hurry up with the Sorting and start the feast. Her cramps were always worse when she was hungry.

"Is anyone we know being Sorted this year?" Draco asked Pansy.

Pansy tucked a lock of hair behind her ear thoughtfully, and Rigel noticed it was now long enough to reach past her shoulders. "I think the Rowle Heiress is eleven this year. The Carrow Heir, too."

"Don't forget Billy Travers," Millicent put in.

"I thought he was slated for Durmstrang." Pansy's mouth was a thoughtful moue. "Isn't his father friends with the Headmaster there?"

Millicent shrugged. "I saw him on the platform. I guess Durmstrang wouldn't take him."

"Durmstrang's definition of pureblood is more strict than Hogwarts'. I'm fairly sure one of his great grandmothers was a Muggleborn," Draco said.

"Durmstrang requires four generations of magical blood on both sides?" Rigel hadn't known that. It seemed a very strict requirement, and she wondered how many people at Hogwarts met that standard.

"Preferably more, but if your surname is old, you can get away with four as a minimum," Millicent explained. "And they don't make exceptions for creature blood, the way schools like Beauxbatons do."

"Technically Beauxbatons accepts all students, regardless of blood," Rigel pointed out.

"Technically, that's a load of centaur dung," Theo said, snorting in amusement. "If you look at their actual acceptance statistics, Halfbloods make up a steady five percent; they keep that quota for publicity purposes, and I hear the Halfbloods pay twice the tuition anyway. As for Muggleborns, I think the last one on record was six years ago, and she didn't graduate."

Rigel held her tongue, but she couldn't help the disgust she felt at how readily those of lesser blood were dismissed and discarded without ever being given a proper chance. She felt a small mental spike and flicked her eyes to Draco. He was watching her intently, and Rigel narrowed her eyes before quelling her emotions firmly. The pain subsided and she sent a quick, _thanks Dom_ , to her mindscape. As the Deputy Headmistress at last paraded the first years into the hall, Rigel was left wondering just how often her friend scanned her emotions. Was he just using it on everyone all the time or did he check up on her emotional state specifically? Either way, she may have to be more careful.

The hall quieted, and the Sorting Hat came alive once more to sing.

"There is a tale you may have heard;

The whole world knows it well

And every year inside this hall

That story I retell

There once were four inspired lords

And ladies who it seemed

Did take upon themselves a task

That no one else had dreamed

On this site they built a castle

Matched to their ambition

Its walls would house the children if

Their plans came to fruition

Its doors would open wide to all

Who sought to fill their minds

Yes, every child was welcome here

Regardless of their kind!

Sir Godric loved the daring ones

And Salazar, the sly

Rowena sought the ones with smarts

And Helga, those who try

And while each had their favorites

The truth was widely known

The founders cared for all their charges

—Not one group alone!

Although Godric designed me to

Decide where you will stay

What many now forget is that

Each student got a say

The truth is that your choices are

What make you so unique

A cursory inspection just

Can't find the things I seek

No one is born courageous, wise,

Ambitious, or hard working

It's folly to imagine I

Could find such traits just lurking

It's willpower alone that makes you

Something to behold

So disregard your prejudice!

Forget what you've been told!

Instead look to your heart to judge

Who _you_ would like to be

And when you try me on I promise

—that is what I'll see!"

Perfunctory applause rang out, but, like last year, it was filled with murmuring and curious commentary.

"I swear it gets less specific every year," Theo said, laughing a bit. "I mean, if it keeps deteriorating the first-years will have to sort themselves."

"It is quite old," Blaise pointed out. "Perhaps its magic is finally fading."

Rigel thought it more likely that the hat had simply forgotten its audience. Still, the Sorting proceeded without incident. The Carrow boy was the first to join Slytherin, and Rigel couldn't help but wonder how an eleven-year-old could have such a haughty look about them. Rowanda Rowle was a timid little thing, with long brown hair hanging into her face, and Travers, who seemed much too big to be a first-year, had a sullen-faced look about him that Rigel hoped wasn't permanent.

"Not much hope for the new lot," Theo commented as the Sorting Hat was taken away.

"Too soon to tell," Pansy said kindly.

They quieted as Dumbledore stood to give his opening announcements. The anticipation on her classmates' faces told Rigel they expected the Headmaster to say something about the anticipated event their parents had hinted at. Dumbledore, however, gave the usual start of term reminders and warnings and sat back down, with absolutely no reference or allusion to any kind of unusual happenings at Hogwarts that year.

Her eyes slid along the Head Table, noting the new faces. There were only two. One was a dark-haired man with a solid build who she supposed was probably the new Care of Magical Creatures professor, because the other one was Auror Dawlish. She recognized his close-cropped hair and perpetually serious expression. He could only be their new Defense professor, but she wondered whether Dumbledore or the Ministry had arranged for him to take a leave of absence from work for so long.

When the food appeared, her year-mates seemed too distracted to even notice, but Rigel dug in with alacrity while they furiously discussed the conspicuous lack of information.

"Maybe he's not permitted to say anything," Millicent supposed.

"More like he doesn't approve of whatever is happening," Draco said. "If it's something that's going to make the S.O.W. Party look good, there's no reason for Dumbledore to support it."

"If none of our parents have revealed it yet, chances are we won't find out until an official announcement," Blaise reasoned.

"You'd think they'd want to at least warn the students that something was going on," Theo said, sounding a bit put out. "After all, we can't be the only ones who have heard something from our parents.

"Ask Snape," Rigel said. Her friends all turned to look at her. She took a swig from her water goblet and cleared her throat. "He usually knows what the Party is up to when it happens at Hogwarts." At least, she suspected he did.

"You say 'up to' like it's going to be a bad thing," Pansy said, frowning slightly.

"Isn't it always?" Rigel shrugged as her friend's troubled expression deepened. "Maybe this year is the exception," she allowed. "I mean, bringing politics into a school full of kids never ends badly, does it?"

Draco was looking increasingly alarmed and Theo straight out gaped at her. Blaise shot a look up and down the table around them before leaning forward and lowering his voice. "Be careful, Rigel. The Party has ears everywhere, and it can make life difficult for you."

Rigel leveled a look at Blaise and slowly slid it to encompass each of her friends in turn before saying, "I don't give a brass Knut if the Party hears my opinion. I'll say it to Riddle's face. Whatever is happening at Hogwarts this year is a bad idea."

Pansy's face paled two shades and she immediately changed the subject. "Will you be starting up the Dueling Club again, Draco? We all so enjoyed it last year."

Draco picked up the thread of conversation easily, but his eyes kept flicking worriedly toward Rigel. He was not the only one. She knew she had unnerved the others with her blunt speech. She didn't care, though. She was so sick and tired of tiptoeing around the Party's ill-conceived plots while they played havoc with her life. As she picked at her food, waiting for the feast to end, she began to feel a bit guilty at startling them, though. It wasn't their fault that their families were embedded in the Party. They didn't know where the Basilisk came from, nor anything about the Dominion Jewel and Riddle's hand in its presence at Hogwarts. It wasn't really fair to put them in the position of listening to her criticize it, when any perception of disloyalty on their part might spell trouble for their families.

She needed to pull herself together. She'd grown too bold in the last few months, forgotten how to keep her own council. She couldn't be herself here, and she couldn't afford to forget that while Pansy, Draco, Millicent, Blaise, and Theo were her friends, their ultimate loyalty was not to her and never would be.

Rigel kept to herself for the remainder of the meal, and when Slytherin House traipsed to the dungeons she hung back a little, letting the others pull ahead of her in the crowd. She had a moment of wistfulness as she thought of her time in the lower alleys that summer. That freedom was beyond her reach right now. It was time to focus on the task at hand.

When they'd assembled in the common room to await their Head of House, Rigel sidled back over to her friends and gave them an apologetic smile. Pansy sighed, but took Rigel's hand and pressed it briefly. "Do try not to give us all heart attacks at every meal this year, Rye."

She reached up with her free hand to ruffle her bangs sheepishly. "Sorry, Pan. I don't mean to burden you with my worldview. Sometimes my tongue runs away from me."

Pansy's gaze was both worried and a bit sad. "You _can_ talk to us about stuff like that, you know. Just maybe," she dropped her voice, "not in the middle of the Great Hall."

"Right." Rigel grimaced. She had really lost her head there. She probably ought to start exercising her Occlumency all the time, if for no other reason than that Riddle's name was likely to come up an infuriating amount over the next few months. She could only hope that whatever he was scheming came to a swift conclusion and left them in peace.

Snape's appearance commanded instantaneous silence. He surveyed the room slowly, probably mentally accounting for all who ought to be present. His eyes met Rigel's briefly before moving on and finally resting on the new first-years.

"Welcome to Slytherin House," he said. Somehow Snape's voice could fill a room no matter how quietly he spoke. "I am your Head of House, Potions Master Severus Snape. No doubt you believe you understand what Slytherin House entails; forget the misconceptions you harbor. Slytherin House is a unit. We are the bulwark of tradition against a backdrop of indolence and idiocy. Here, you will find refuge for neither. Your triumphs will be your House's pride, your disgraces likewise. That said, Slytherin House will not itself make you into the witches and wizards you aim to be. Every individual in this room must work for their ambitions. It is for Slytherin House to support and safeguard those ambitions until they see achievement."

He paused for a moment to sweep the room with his gaze before continuing in a slightly different vein. "If you have not heard rumors already, know that this year there are certain anticipated events that will elevate this school to public scrutiny like nothing you have experienced thus far. With the eyes of the world upon us, you _will_ make Slytherin proud. Each of you will do your part to present a dignified, unified, façade until this charade is over." He cut off a sixth year's question with a sharp cut of his hand. "You will know more when it is necessary. For now, simply be cognizant of your appearance and behavior. If any one of you brings shame to the house of snakes, it will not be only me that you must answer to." With that ominous declaration, Snape swept from the room, leaving the prefects to corral the firsties and the rest of them to exchange murmured conversation.

"Well, that answers that," Theo said, releasing a small laugh. "We've just become the Abraxans in the Party's dog and pony show."

"And me without my manicure done," Millicent said drolly.

Rigel laughed along with the others, but there was a burning sensation in her stomach that she doubted would go away until she knew exactly what the year was to entail. It was like being told you had a grave illness but the exact diagnosis was inconclusive. She just wanted to _know_ what was going to happen so she could start dealing with it.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

When Snape dropped Rigel's fourth year class schedule next to her plate at breakfast, Draco snatched it up so fast she was surprised he didn't pop a joint. He ignored her long-suffering sigh and perused it at his leisure.

"No potions," he said. "I suppose you're self-studying again this year." His eyes boggled. " _Alchemy?_ Since when do you take Alchemy?"

"Ah, well, remember last year when I was taking more classes than you thought?" Rigel's smile wilted slightly under Draco's affronted glare. "Yes, I am taking Alchemy."

"Healing I guessed, but how did you even get into Alchemy? You need recommendations from about three different professors." Draco was a little more worked up than Rigel would have anticipated, if she had thought to realize that her friends would be very curious about her schedule this year.

Pansy gently plucked the schedule from Draco's hand and looked over it herself. "You've dropped Ancient Runes," she said, humming thoughtfully.

"I figured I could self-study that subject the easiest," Rigel explained. "Arithmancy pairs really well with Alchemy, anyway, and I knew I wanted to keep that one."

"What's it like, learning from Dumbledore himself?" Blaise asked from across the table, shameless in his eavesdropping.

"Very different from my other classes," Rigel admitted. "He literally wrote the textbook himself. His handwriting is a little hard to read sometimes, and there are no chapters or quizzes or tests. We just kind of meander from topic to topic as it comes up."

Blaise raised his eyebrows. "That sounds a bit lackadaisical. Isn't there an OWL curriculum you should be following?"

"Actually, no, there's no OWL for Alchemy," Rigel said. It had been one of her first questions, too.

Draco frowned. "What's the point of taking the class, then?"

"Some people learn things for their own sake," Rigel said, smiling.

"But you could be taking a class that did provide you an OWL," Theo put in. Rigel looked over to see him and Millicent both following the conversation with unabashed fascination.

"OWLs don't really matter for me," Rigel said honestly. "I only need a handful to keep my wand. The Potions Guild only requires the Potions and Herbology NEWTs anyway as a prerequisite to trying for the Mastery."

"You are such a Ravenclaw sometimes," Draco complained. He turned to his own schedule finally and scanned it quickly. His mouth dropped open in shock. "No Dueling? What are they playing at?" Draco stood at once, breakfast forgotten, and strode off in the direction of the professors' table.

"Perhaps the Defense professor isn't up to teaching two classes this year," Millicent said, chewing her bacon thoughtfully. "Shame. I liked your uncle okay, Rigel."

Rigel inclined her head in thanks. When Pansy finally returned her schedule she looked it over to make sure the things she'd discussed with Professor Snape were reflected accurately. Monday and Wednesday she had Charms, Transfiguration, and Herbology. Tuesday and Thursday were DADA, History, and Arithmancy. Friday she would have Healing in the morning and Alchemy in the afternoon. Astronomy was every Thursday evening after sundown. Potions wasn't listed anywhere, but she'd already agreed to have lessons Friday, Saturday, or Sunday with her Head of House, depending on his schedule each week.

"Rigel," Pansy said, causing her to look up at the blond girl curiously. "Is your schedule correct in putting you in the fifth year Healing class?"

Rigel nodded. "I'm the only student for fourth year, and the fifth year class fits better in my schedule anyway. Madam Pomfrey says it won't be any trouble to get me up to speed. It didn't sound like her fifth year student was much more advanced."

Pansy nodded thoughtfully. "Healing has an OWL, I believe. Will you take it at the end of the year?"

Rigel blinked. She had not thought of that. "I suppose I may as well," she said. "The NEWT isn't offered at Hogwarts unless you get special permission, so this will be my last year taking it officially regardless."

"Why is that?" Pansy asked.

"I think it's because an NEWT in the subject requires a wider range of experience than can be got from a classroom alone," Rigel said. "At AIM, Harry's program has her working at local hospitals in a supervised role, because for a lot of the practical aspects, you need an actual sick or injured person or animal to practice on. Madam Pomfrey can only provide so much in a few hours a week. I know she has had NEWT students in the past, but they end up dropping most of their other NEWT classes and focusing on that alone."

"I hadn't considered that," Pansy said, looking somewhat ill. "You practice on animals, Rigel?"

She winced. "I do. Sorry, Pan. Madam Pomfrey puts them unconscious and numbs them up, so they don't suffer if I make a mistake. Also, we only use animals that can be usefully harvested. It's not wanton, but I can't tell you an animal never gets hurt."

The girl shuddered slightly. "I'm glad I didn't apply to take that subject."

"What do you have this year?" Rigel asked, turning her attention delicately away from the gruesome realities of Healing class. "Did you stick with Arithmancy?"

"I did," Pansy said, pushing her schedule toward Rigel for a quick comparison. "I dropped Divination—it wasn't as rigorous a subject as I thought it would be. I'm sticking with Care of Magical Creatures, though. Did you know Rookwood's uncle is teaching it this year?"

Rigel shook her head. "That's bound to be a great class, then. He owns a creature reserve, right? I bet he's a lot more knowledgeable than last year's professor."

If Pansy noticed that Rigel chose not to say Pettigrew's name out loud, she let it go gracefully.

Breakfast was wrapping up and Draco had not returned. Rigel and Pansy decided it was better to meet him in class than to wait around and potentially lose points for all three of them being tardy, and began making their way toward the Great Hall doors.

A voice from the Ravenclaw table called out to Rigel as she passed. Rigel turned to see Cho Chang waving at her from the other side. She approached curiously, Pansy close behind her. "Good morning," she said, tilting her head as the Asian girl thrust a stack of parchment at her. "What's this?"

"Madam Pomfrey told me you were joining my Healing class," Chang said, smiling in a way that brought out the soft prettiness of her features. "Those are my notes from last year. It's just me taking it this year, so it'll be nice to have company and someone to study with."

Rigel took the notes with a returning smile. "This is very kind of you. I'll be sure to study hard so I don't hold you back too much."

Cho shook her head, and her long, black hair briefly obstructed her eyes before she pushed it back again. "Madam Pomfrey says you are already ahead of the fourth year curriculum. I'm sure we will learn a lot together."

"See you Friday, then," Rigel said, tucking the hefty stack of notes away in her bag neatly. It would be nice to have a classmate to bounce ideas off of, she thought. Archie was decidedly ahead of her now in every aspect of Healing, and his explanations were sometimes too advanced to follow easily.

As she walked toward the Charms classroom with Pansy, her friend looked sidelong at her and said, a playful tone to her voice, "That was interesting."

"Why's that?" Rigel asked, quirking an eyebrow at the mischievous expression on Pansy's face.

"The Changs are relatively new to English Wizarding society, but they have good connections all the same," Pansy said, choosing not to answer the question directly. "She walked about with Adrian for a few months last year, but they parted amiably."

"That is very interesting," Rigel said flatly, fighting an eye roll as she understood Pansy's pointed speculation. "If only I weren't already betrothed."

Pansy bumped her admonishingly. "You can't hide behind that contract forever, Rigel. It's perfectly obvious you have no intention of marrying your cousin."

"Only to someone as brilliant and socially accomplished as you, dear Pansy." At least, Rigel hoped it wasn't that obvious to anyone else.

Draco caught up to them as they reached the classroom, and one look at his face told them he had not been successful in correcting the perceived deficiency in his schedule.

"No Dueling, then?" Rigel guessed, frowning sympathetically. "Did Snape say why?"

"No," Draco said, scowling. "I know it has something to do with whatever the event is that's happening here, though. He said I can't start my Dueling Club again, either! How is that fair?"

"They cancelled the class and the club?" Pansy raised her eyebrows. "That's a rather obvious hint. Are they holding a dueling tournament?"

"I asked that, and Snape said that wasn't why. I couldn't tell whether he was lying—his Occlumency is too good for my Empathy to read," Draco complained. Rigel gathered he must be very annoyed if he went so far as to mention his gift aloud. He normally pretended he was merely clairvoyant rather than acknowledge it openly.

"It could also be because of the press," Rigel pointed out. "Maybe for some reason people don't want it known that Dueling is taught at Hogwarts."

"It's a magic school, it's _supposed_ to teach us those things." Draco shook his head with disgust and flopped into his seat with all the grace of a narcoleptic troll falling unconscious.

"It's not exactly an uncommon subject," Pansy agreed. "I suppose we'll have to wait and see what the reasoning is. If there is a dueling competition to be held, then you can enter. If there isn't, we'll find another way to practice."

"Exactly," Rigel said encouragingly. "Who says we have to form a club to practice dueling?"

"I tried that," Draco said, sighing dejectedly. "Snape said if he got a single report of any Slytherins dueling on Hogwarts grounds he would hold me personally responsible and I'd be in detention for a month."

Rigel couldn't mask her surprise. Snape practically doted on his godson. For him to issue so severe a threat could only mean that the dueling ban was serious. Pansy made encouraging noises about finding somewhere Snape wouldn't be monitoring to keep up their practice, but all Rigel could think was that if there was some kind of dueling competition at Hogwarts, she would stay well out of it.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

No one was sure what to expect from the new Defense professor. Whether at meals or in the corridors, Auror Dawlish always bore the same staid look of disinterested professionalism. By Tuesday, rumors already abounded that Professor Dawlish was strict and humorless, but they had also heard that he didn't assign essays. It was with cautious curiosity that the fourth year Slytherins and Gryffindors took their seats for the double lesson.

Dawlish read off the roll briskly, only pausing to mark down modifications to pronunciation before continuing without comment down the list. As he tucked the roll away in a pocket of the olive trench coat he seemed to favor, the Auror surveyed them with a blank expression. A couple of steps in his sturdy boots brought the tall man to the center of the room, where he paused and snapped, "Eyes on me."

Those students at the front of the room who hadn't turned their heads to follow the man whipped around in their seats, startled.

"The first thing you will learn in this class is to always keep your eyes on the biggest threat in the room. That would be me, in case it wasn't clear." His icy blue eyes narrowed as they swept the classroom once more. He walked to the back of the classroom and turned to face them. None of the students looked away.

Rigel felt her eyebrows rise of their own accord. Unexpectedly, Auror Dawlish could carry a room. She knew the man was one of her father's go-to Aurors for important assignments, but she'd never heard him speak more than a handful of words at a time. Then again, she supposed she'd always seen him on duty, most often guarding the Minister in Fudge's personal detail. She wondered again how he'd gotten the Defense Against the Dark Arts job this year. Was the Ministry looking to have a presence at the school? Or had the man simply fancied a chance to teach?

"I am John Dawlish, Auror, Halfblood, and for the remainder of this term—your worst nightmare." Dawlish began to walk back toward the front of the room and it was almost amusing to watch the class swivel to follow his progress like moon-blinked owls. "For the last two years I've served as the Deputy Head of Security for the Minister of Magic. Before that, I was head of Special Response Force Three. I've been fighting the Dark Arts longer than any of you have been alive, so you will respect me in this classroom, understood?"

There was silence, and more than a few confused looks were exchanged among the students. Rigel couldn't think of any other professor who had just flat out demanded respect from his students. It would be interesting to see how it worked out for him.

Dawlish resumed his slow pacing, this time to the right side of the classroom. Was he really going to be moving about the entire lesson? It was going to get tiresome to follow his every move for over an hour. "I have reviewed the syllabi for your previous three years. Near as I can tell from the notes they left behind, your previous professors were well-meaning at best and utterly incompetent at worst."

Rigel tamped down on the offense she felt on Remus' behalf. There was no sense being upset when Dawlish likely hadn't ever met Remus and didn't mean the criticism personally.

"You covered minor schoolyard jinxes and a lot of useless theory in your first year," Dawlish said, ticking off his fingers deliberately. "Your second year you seem to have wasted entirely. I thought the exams in _Professor_ Lockhart's files were a joke at first, but it seems he was just a narcissistic loon." Muffled chortles swiftly turned into awkward coughs as Dawlish whipped his head around to search for the noisemakers. "Last year, Professor Lupin appears to have attempted to catch you up, but while he covered Dark Creatures comprehensively enough, spell-casting fell to the wayside."

"He taught Dueling, too," Ron said, frowning.

"An optional class only helps those who opt into it," Dawlish said. Leveling a menacing look at the redheaded boy, he added. "Don't speak out of turn again, Mr. Weasley."

Ron swallowed and nodded shortly. Rigel caught his eyes and smiled. It was nice of him to defend Remus. He smiled back, shrugging a bit.

"Eyes on me!"

Rigel grimaced, moving her gaze back to Auror apologetically. "Sorry, Professor."

Dawlish met her eyes for a stern moment. "I won't say it a third time." When she inclined her head deferentially, he continued. "Thus far you have not been exposed to anything truly dangerous. While I understand the logistical drawbacks to bringing a quintuple-X dark creature into the classroom, you can and will be familiar with the majority of dark curses by the end of this year."

Many of the students perked up in interest. It was true that while they'd studied the theory behind many practices of the Dark Arts, they'd yet to actually see most of it in action.

"Some people think it's irresponsible to teach dangerous spells to kids," Dawlish said, making his way slowly across the front of the classroom. "They're right, and I won't." She could almost feel the collective sigh of disappointment from the class. "What I will teach you is how to recognize them and how to counter them. I'm guessing you've never had a Bone Crushing Hex thrown at you, Mr. Malfoy."

Draco startled slightly at being singled out. "Can't say I have, Professor."

"Your name is on the roster for last year's Dueling class, is it not?" Dawlish asked.

Draco nodded slowly. "Yes, Professor. We typically didn't try to kill one another, however."

" _Exactly_ ," Dawlish said, stressing the word with a growl. "In a friendly duel no one is going to try to kill you, so how will you react when it happens? Many witches and wizards believe that to hunt Dark Arts users you need to know a lot of Dark Arts yourself. Fight fire with fire, as it were. Well you don't. If any of you are ever in a fight for your life, you only need to remember one principle: _react appropriately."_

Dawlish snapped his wrist out and had palmed his wand before Rigel had time to draw a surprised breath. His wand arm twisted unerringly toward Draco and a jet of light shot toward the blond without the murmur of a spell to foreshadow it. Rigel had pulled Draco sideways toward her the moment she saw the wand brandished his way. Her friend ended up half-collapsed in her lap, but the Stinging Hex missed his head.

Draco straightened with slow dignity, a slight flush riding high on his cheekbones. "Thanks," he murmured to Rigel under his breath.

"Anytime," she said, a bit breathless at the unexpected attack.

"Not bad, Mr. Black," Dawlish said, a slight smirk pulling on one side of his mouth. "Didn't spare a thought for anyone behind your friend, though. I only missed Miss Davis by an inch. Why didn't you shield, if your reflexes are so good?"

"I didn't have my wand out," she admitted.

"That sounds like a bad idea, doesn't it?" At his quiet words, there was a rippling shuffle as students produced their wands from pockets and sleeves. "In this class, you will not be assigned homework or quizzes. Your motivation to study will be the number of injuries you walk away with each day."

Rigel guessed she wasn't the only one who felt a fission of trepidation at that ominous pronouncement. It was going to be like a whole year of Remus' dodging exercise. Except there was nowhere _to_ dodge while sitting behind a desk.

Dawlish didn't seem concerned with the fear of Mordred he'd just put into every student. "The key to staying alive when an evil wizard tries to kill you is in matching appropriate actions to particular threats. You might be tempted to dodge everything—that will get you killed. You might try shielding against everything instead—that will also get you killed. If you learn to react intelligently to each spell as it comes, you might still be killed, but there's a higher chance you'll live to at least run away. If you die, the Dark Arts win. This is _Defense_ Against the Dart Arts, right?" Most of the class nodded uncertainly. "Then we don't want the Dark Arts to win!" he barked.

"Each lesson I will demonstrate a handful of dangerous spells and teach you how to recognize them on the fly. Next week, you will be tested on your reaction to these spells. I will be casting them on each of you without mercy. Only by properly distinguishing each spell will you be able to react appropriately to it. Some spells cannot be shielded against. Some spells cannot be dodged. If you don't know which is which, how can you survive?" Dawlish frowned around the room at them all as though they had personally offended him by being unable to adequately defend themselves from hypothetical evil witches or wizards. "Mr. Black, what spell did I send at Mr. Malfoy?"

"A Stinging Hex," she said.

"How do you know?" he pressed.

Rigel didn't think he would care that she'd seen about a thousand of them in her sessions with Remus, so she simply said, "The white light is distinctive in the way it flares slightly around the wand before being propelled forward. Also, the Stinging Hex moves slightly faster than the average speed of magic." That was one of the reasons Remus said it made for good dodging practice.

Dawlish grinned at her. "Well, well, there may be hope for your survival. Very good, Mr. Black. Five points to Slytherin."

The Auror spent the rest of the class demonstrating several advanced dueling spells that reacted badly when they came up against a shield. Rigel had no idea that there were Hexes that could explode if they encountered a shield; add to that the very small number of shields that were strong enough to protect from blast at point blank.

Dawlish promised them that next time they would go over spells that affected a wide area and so couldn't be dodged. She found herself looking forward to it. Even Draco seemed a bit mollified by the end of the class.

"At least we'll be learning _something_ useful in Dueling," he said to Rigel and Pansy on their way out.

"Are you still going to try restarting the club?" Pansy asked.

"Of course," Draco said. There was no hesitation in his voice. "I worked all summer on the lesson plans. I just have to find a way to do it without Uncle Snape finding out."

Rigel silently wished him luck with that. There wasn't much that Snape didn't find out about, one way or another. Then again, perhaps she was giving him too much credit. He wasn't omniscient, after all. If he were, she would have been discovered and arrested by now. For a number of things.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

Defense was not the only class that impressed her that week; Rigel found herself enjoying fourth year classes more than any other year thus far. She was finally catching up to the advanced theories and concepts that she'd started studying way back in first year, when completing Flint's assignments had meant hours of extra research in the Library each week. For the first time, she felt like she'd come full-circle. Her regular course work would now be bridging the last of the gaps in her knowledge, and she was somewhat surprised to realize how much of the fourth-year syllabus she already had a good understanding of, if only because of the background research she'd done is the core subjects just to keep up with Flint's increasingly challenging assignments.

Also for the first time, she could openly study anything she wanted to in front of her friends. Nothing she was interested in could be considered suspicious because everything was above board. If her friends were confused by the almost gleeful about of books Rigel brought into the common room each evening, they wisely chalked it up to 'things about Rigel that no one needs to try explaining' and let her have her fun.

When Friday dawned at last, Rigel was positively bouncing through her morning workout with Draco and Pansy.

"Will you stop grinning?" Draco stopped his squats to glare at her, and there was something so amusing about watching him try to glare and pant and the same time that her smile grew even wider. "Stop it!" Draco cried, a laugh escaping him accidentally. "Damn it, Rigel, your happiness is making me sick."

Rigel laughed. "Enjoy it, Dray. I know you rarely get to experience such pure, unadulterated academic joy."

"You're quite excited for your Alchemy class," Pansy said, continuing to lower and raise herself calmly as she spoke. "If it's really so interesting, you must explain how it relates to Arithmancy some time."

"Sure," Rigel said easily. "Though that's not what I'm excited about. I have my first Potions lesson tonight with Professor Snape."

"So what?" Draco was having trouble looking annoyed while stubbornly fighting a smile. "You've had Potions with him for three years already."

"I'm learning _free brewing_ this year," Rigel said. She had to say it almost reverently. It was what she'd been looking forward to all summer.

"Isn't that dangerous?" Pansy asked. "I think I've heard that many potions-related injuries and even deaths occur because of free brewing."

Rigel nodded happily. "Nearly all fatalities among certified potioneers are in some way related to free brewing. It's very difficult to learn, partly because so few Masters adept in it live long enough to pass on their knowledge. Professor Snape is the best there is, though, so he probably won't let any harm come to me."

"What do you mean 'probably'?" Draco spluttered.

"No guarantees in free brewing," Rigel said. She felt like humming, but restrained herself when Pansy sent her a reproachful look. "I'm sure I'll be fine," she assured them. "Professor Snape wouldn't offer to teach me if he didn't know what he was doing."

Pansy and Draco dropped the subject, but she had a feeling they'd be counting her limbs before she went to bed that night.

With an effort, she managed to calm her good spirits to a level Draco found tolerable before they went in to shower and change. She did still have Healing and Alchemy to attend before she got to sink into the mental nirvana that was a proper Potions lesson after a long summer of independent experimentation.

Healing was a short lesson, with Madam Pomfrey merely going over the syllabus she and Cho were to follow, and reviewing major concepts that Cho had covered the previous years so that Rigel understood where to focus her studies to make sure she was caught up before the next week. Cho had been correct when she said Rigel had already been a bit ahead of the fourth year Hogwarts syllabus, so there wasn't anything that she'd never been exposed to through either Archie's curriculum or her own research. The major difference in the coursework for fifth year Healing was the inclusion of magical maladies instead of primarily dealing with physical injuries.

After lunch, armed with the password 'Cauldron Cakes,' Rigel made her way to the Headmaster's office for her Alchemy lesson. Dumbledore was waiting for her by the bookcases when she reached his office, and no matter how many lessons she had with the old wizard she couldn't quite reconcile his venerated person with the cheesiness of his secret passageway. She couldn't help but smile as he pulled the book and led them through to what served as his classroom. There was something about Albus Dumbledore that put her at ease.

It didn't make any sense, considering he was at least as dangerous as Riddle, in his own way, so the fact that she felt inclined to relax in the Headmaster's presence should itself have been a large red flag. It was hard to remember that, though, when he offered her a lemon drop and hummed cheerfully to himself as he laid out the supplies they would need for the lesson.

"This is your year two Alchemy text," he said, presenting her with another small journal that looked a lot like her 'first year Alchemy text.' Sure enough, as she flipped through it she was confronted with Dumbledore's familiar looping cursive.

Rigel pulled out the previous year's book from her bag and held it toward the Headmaster, saying, "I finished what we hadn't covered over the summer, Sir."

"You may keep it," Dumbledore said, smiling genially. "One never knows when a good reference may come in handy." Rigel smiled back in thanks and stowed both books before taking the sole seat at the table and pulling out her note-taking materials. The Headmaster began to slowly pace the length of the small room on the other side of the work table, idling stroking his beard as he was wont. "Last year, Mr. Black, we started our arrays with a collection of components and, using precise transfiguration equations, built those elements into something whole. This year, we will begin the study of transforming one whole object into another whole object in a single, complete alchemic event. Unhappily, the arrays we study this term will not always be as perfectly balanced as those you have become accustomed to. In the course of alchemy, it is often the case that the individual portions that make up one object are not perfectly matched to the same portions in the object you would like it to become."

Rigel nodded her head slowly. "So we'll sometimes have leftover elements at the end of a transmutation," she surmised. It made sense, since the odds of having the exact same elements necessary to constitute two completely different objects were probably quite low.

"Just so," the venerable wizard confirmed. "The inverse is also true. At times the object that is broken down will not have all of the necessary elements to form the object defined by the array, and the Alchemist will need to include additional components in the first half of the equation in order to make up for that."

Dumbledore took out a piece of chalk and began drawing a simple array on the wooden table in front of Rigel. The runes defined a single-element transformation, and the Headmaster produced a small piece of wood for the input position. "This array you may not recognize, but it is a useful one to know if you ever need to write a letter while in the middle of a forest. It transmutes wood into paper."

Interesting. They'd only scratched the surface of transforming the nature of starter components the previous year. Mostly they'd been turning raw components into a complex form of themselves—a piece of metal into a metal box, for instance—or else a couple of elements into a compound.

"If I were to tell you that the amount of paper I've defined in the output equation is more than the amount of wood I've provided is capable of producing, what do you theorize will happen when I activate the array?" Dumbledore asked when he had finished the alchemic array.

Rigel frowned. "It either won't work, or the array will use all the wood it has available and only produce the corresponding amount of paper."

"What about the extra magic in the array that is not used by the time the wood is gone?"

Dumbledore always asked tricky questions, but Rigel couldn't think of any other answer than, "It will have to discharge into the air, since the array isn't designed to hold any excess magic once activated."

Her professor hummed thoughtfully to himself, but didn't tell her whether she was right or not. Instead, he briefly imbued the array with the requisite magic and activated it. The circle flared and the block of wood dissolved from the input side, while a pile of rough parchment materialized on the output side. Instead of stopping, however, the array seemed to grow, if anything, _brighter_ before finally fading away. With the array used up, the only thing remaining on the table was the stack of parchment and a warped, twisting spiral that seemed to have been gouged out of the wood beneath it.

Rigel had never seen an array do damage to the surface it was drawn on before. "What happened?" she asked.

"What do you think?" Dumbledore prompted.

Rigel looked at the pile of paper, which she thought was a bit higher than it had been before the second, brighter flash, and said, "The array thought the table was part of the wood it was meant to transmute? But that's never happened before."

"When you put magic into an array," Dumbledore said, "it _wants_ to be used. The magic pulled the cellulose from the wood of the table because it was the closest. If I had drawn that array on the back of your hand, the array would have attempted to transmute your fingers into parchment, too."

She paled a bit. "That's not good."

"Alchemy can be a very dangerous art," Dumbledore agreed gravely. "You must never forget that the array drives the magic you imbue toward completing the task outlined in the runic inscriptions. If your equations do not balance, special precaution must be taken to account for the _leftovers_ , as you put it. Now let us try another example, but this time you will imbue the array, Mr. Black."

Rigel hesitated. She knew this was going to come up—there was no way to continue her Alchemy lessons without addressing it—but somehow she still felt nervous about what she was going to do. "Professor," she said tentatively. "Would it be all right if I… recalibrated my magical constant?" She was prepared to explain that her magic had gone through certain changes since the last time she'd used it for their classes, but without a word of question Dumbledore reached into his robes and pulled out the calibration device as though he'd merely been waiting for her to ask.

She gaped at him as he set it on the table. How did he guess? The Headmaster twinkled at her. Rigel had to smile as she took hold of the cold metal tube. "Thank you, Sir."

Rigel told herself not to be afraid. She had to have an accurate magical constant to progress in Alchemy, and she had already decided it was a subject she wanted to one day marry more closely with Potions. There was no reason why anyone besides Dumbledore should ever know what her magical constant was, and even if it got out, there was no reason for Archie's exact magical strength to ever be known once they'd both graduated and switched back. She closed her eyes and channeled her magic, trying not to worry about it. She just let go.

The magic poured out of her at a phenomenal pace. She opened her eyes on a gasp to see the crystal at the end of the calibrator tumbling through yellow and green without pause. It pushed through blue at a fair clip, then began to slow, bleeding lavender and brightening to a proper violet before darkening to an almost eggplant shade and finally holding steady. Rigel set the device down somewhat shakily. It hadn't been that dark when she'd measured it at Frein's for the suppressor. Had the year of living with the suppressor really made it noticeably stronger?

Dumbledore spread a color chart on the table beside the device, not seeming to notice her unease as he mused happily, "Marvelous, simply splendid. We can proceed to more complicated arrays much sooner that I had planned. What do you think? Does it look 'plum' to you?"

"Sure," she said, trying not to let the slightly hysterical laugh inside her chest bubble out. How could it have gotten _worse?_

"A 1.3 it is, then," Dumbledore said, smiling serenely at her. "How incredible."

"Is it?" Rigel shook her head on a sigh. "What's your magical constant, sir, if you don't mind my asking?"

The Headmaster affected a somewhat modest expression. "Mine happens to be .97," he said.

She blinked at him, then looked down at the color chart on the table. The very darkest value on the scale was pure black, and it held the base value 1.0 as the corresponding constant. _Trust Dumbledore to be literally off the chart._ She actually felt a bit better about hers, knowing that. "How did you ever calculate that?" she asked, now immensely curious. Being lower than the lowest standard meant that he would have been constantly overshooting the calculated input.

He twinkled at her again. "It took careful trial and error to reach the exact number. My first six months, all my arrays exploded. Nicolas was quite displeased with the destruction I wreaked on his workshop."

Rigel tried to imagine the venerated wizard before her blowing up someone's workshop, but she really couldn't picture it. Dumbledore put away the color chart once more and Rigel dutifully made note of the 1.3 value for future equations. She'd expended energy beyond the point of being able to imbue any arrays for a few hours, so Dumbledore wrapped up the lesson there. "If you have nothing else that piques your curiosity today, I will see you next week," he said. He folded his hands in front of his robes and waited patiently while she thought.

There was one other thing she could ask him about, but she wasn't sure it was a good idea. When she paused an awkward time in answering, Dumbledore said, seemingly to no one in particular, "On the rare occasion that a question utterly baffles me, I find I generally have a good idea where to look."

There was no harm in asking, she told herself, as long as she phrased it as an academic inquiry. "I was thinking about this the other day, sir, and it's not really related to Alchemy, but is there ever an instance in which a person's magical core might resonate with another's?"

Dumbledore gave her a long look and began slowly curling the end of his beard around his finger as he thought. "Rarely, a set of twins may have magic similar enough to cause a sort of recognition between the two. It is not a true resonance, however."

"What if the two people aren't related at all?" she asked, striving to sound neutral. "Does it mean those two people would be similar in some way?"

"Not necessarily," Dumbledore said. He lifted his eyes to the ceiling in a gesture she recognized as him trying to recall a distant memory. "I have never heard of two unrelated persons having resonant magic," he said after a lengthy silence. Rigel fought her disappointment until he added, "Except in one peculiar incident many years ago. This may take some explaining, I'm afraid. Do you have time for a story?"

Rigel nodded quickly.

"Wonderful. Well, I once knew a young woman who was researching the North American Hodag. Are you familiar with the Hodag, Mr. Black?"

Rigel tilted her head. "Just the horn—it's used in alertness potions, though it can be dangerously potent."

"Just so," the Headmaster said. He began pacing the room once more as he continued his story. "The Hodag is also endowed with impressive fangs that, when used on potential prey, inject a very interesting venom into the victim's system. Unlike most venoms, which tend to paralyze or slow prey into a docile state, the Hodag's venom contains a small piece of its own hyperactive magic, which rouses its prey into a state of over-alertness that can last for many days. Eventually, the sleep-deprivation and adrenaline overdose compromise the prey's defenses utterly, and that is when the Hodag make a meal of its victim."

Rigel thought that was a rather gruesome way to go, but animals had to eat as much as she did, she supposed.

"You may be wondering how the Hodag keeps track of its intended prey until the venom takes effect," Dumbledore said, smiling slightly at the look on her face that said she hadn't been wondering that, but probably should have. "This is where the Hodag's other unique ability comes into play. This creature is capable of tracking to its own magical signature. The venom it releases is quite literally a small piece of its own magic, and the Hodag can sense the location of the pieces of magic it gives away, provided it remains within a certain distance to its source. Isn't that remarkable?"

"Quite," she said faintly. Her mind was whirring with a dawning dread. Was such a thing really possible? Had she been… _tagged,_ like some kind of animal? Dumbledore was continuing his anecdote, and she struggled to pay attention. She couldn't do anything now, she reminded herself; she needed to know the full extent of the situation first.

"My student of many years ago believed that any magical creature, including wizards, should be able to do the same as the Hodag, if only they had a way to share a piece of their own magic with another." Dumbledore's face grew somewhat somber as he said, "She devised a ritual to transfer a piece of her own magic to another wizard. Her fiancé at the time volunteered. You could say it worked—too well, alas. His core fully assimilated the magic she bestowed on him, and the resulting resonance between them became so unbearably uncomfortable that they could not stand the slightest contact from that day on. Even worse for my dear student, her theory was incorrect; while she experienced resonant feedback upon direct contact with her fiancé's skin, she could not, try as she might, sense or track him in any way."

"Did they figure out how to reverse it?" Rigel asked, only feeling slightly better that the resonance had not provided any concrete information to the woman about her fiancé.

"I'm afraid not," Dumbledore said, sighing. "The two separated and never came within a few feet of one another again. The experiment was deemed a failure, and I myself have not considered the story further until now."

"Is there a record of the experiment somewhere?" she asked. Despite Dumbledore's assurances that nothing had come of it, she couldn't help the slow panic developing in her brain. Riddle wouldn't do a thing like that for no reason—if, indeed, that was what he'd done with no ritual or even a spell that she'd noticed. What if he'd found a way to make it work? What if he could track her? Monitor her? What if her already knew she hadn't left the country over the summer? _What else could he already know?_

Dumbledore tugged his beard with a frown. "I don't believe our esteemed library possesses a copy of the complete report, but I will make inquiries if you are truly interested."

"Yes, please," she said, trying not to look too desperate. She wanted to run straight to the library and look up everything it had about resonance and cross-contamination of one's magic. She felt dirtied by the idea that she might have had a piece of Riddle floating somewhere in her core. There had to be a way to purify it. She just needed time to research.

She thanked Dumbledore for the lesson and tried to clear her mind of its agitation as she headed down from the tower. There was nothing she could do about it yet. She was in the same boat that she'd been in yesterday, and there was no reason to let Draco sense her upset when immediate alarm wouldn't do any actual good. She vowed to just focus on her upcoming Potions class instead. She was not going to let Riddle ruin it. Not this.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

At dinner, Snape handed her a folded piece of parchment and said, "We will meet in lab three tonight, Mr. Black."

Rigel nodded and ignored her friends' amusement as she increased the speed at which she consumed her meal. She gathered her book bag and took her leave with a hurried, "See you guys," to the others.

She followed the instructions on the parchment to a part of the dungeons she hadn't traversed since first year when she'd made a point to explore every area of Hogwarts she could. She didn't even know Snape had a lab that was so out of the way, but when she knocked and entered it became clear why they were using it.

Lab three was utilitarian to an uncomfortable degree. There were no stools, and what counter space was available had been secured to the left side of the room while the right side held only a single brewing station, well away from anything else. Her first thought was that it would be awkward carrying ingredients back and forth so far. As Snape handed her a heavy-duty protective covering, she understood.

"Is this lab specifically for free brewing?" she asked, taking the covering and frowning as she noted it was as heavy as one of Remus' training belts.

As she tried the full-body apron on, Snape confirmed her guess. "This lab is for particularly volatile brewing. The walls and floor have been reinforced with containment spells, and a number of voice-activated wards are in place around the cauldron stand."

The protective garment, which covered her from chin to knees, seemed to fit well enough. Snape hung it on a sturdy nail by the door, next to another, larger version.

"We store nothing in this lab besides the basics," he told her, gesturing to the bare surfaces and scant tools. "Bring eye protection and gloves to every lesson. You will melt more cauldrons this year than all of your year mates in their seven years combined—no small feat, I assure you."

She smiled, but nodded in response to his expectant look. She could barely contain her excitement. She wondered if they would start with a known recipe and alter it, or just begin from scratch and choose ingredients according a schema to add to the cauldron.

"Before we begin free brewing, there is one other skill you must master," Snape said. As though he could feel the disappointment leaking out of her ears, he narrowed his eyes. "Potioneers who do not learn this before attempting to free brew die. Horribly."

"Yes, sir," she said, smoothing her face into something less kicked-puppy.

Snape reached into his pocket and pulled out a stack of playing cards. He held them out and she took them, noting the distinctive brand across the top.

"Exploding Snap?" What did a kid's game have to do with potions?

"A training tool," he said, face impassive.

"Like the medi-minis?" she asked, tilting her head curiously at the innocuous cards. She had a basic understanding of the game, though she'd never been a huge fan. It was essentially a matching game, except if you didn't match cards in a randomly allotted amount of time, they exploded.

"These are to hone your sensing ability and your reflexes," Snape explained. "The cards heat up slightly before exploding, which means you'll need to cast a numbing spell on your hands to get the full benefit of this training."

"I know a couple," she assured him. "So I'm to try and predict when cards are going to explode? Without feeling the heat first?"

"Indeed. Before you begin free brewing, you must be able to sense remotely when a potion is reacting violently. It is not enough to maintain a connection with the potion via conscious imbuing; you need to be able to sense the danger instinctively." Snape paused to ensure she was following, and with a nod from her, he continued. "Magic sensitivity is a relatively common skill. All it requires is the projection of your magic into the environment around you. You will recall in your first year when I tested your core. The simplest way to examine a magical thing is to flare your magic toward it briefly and read the return. Do you understand this concept?"

Rigel thought back to first year. When her core had been tethered to Snape's, she'd been able to send a bead of magic along the connection. The echo had automatically translated into rudimentary information about his magical core. She supposed if the theory held true in other cases, she should be able to gather such information about anything around her, depending on how far she was able to project her magical pulse.

"I think I understand," she said, "but would I have to constantly be sending out magic to monitor the potion, since it could change state at any moment?"

"That is the second stage of this ability," Snape said, apparently satisfied that she was following so far. "When you have mastered flaring your magic, you must learn to maintain it in a continuous magical field around you. That application of the skill is _not_ common, but it will save your life if your potion erupts unexpectedly."

"Will it be difficult to maintain this sensitivity field while also trying to conscious imbue?" Rigel asked. Conscious imbuing already involved splitting one's attention between the magic going into the potion and the other aspects of brewing. No wonder free brewing was so rarely taught.

"Extremely," Snape confirmed. "I will not begin free brewing with you until you can do it without concentrating."

She nodded slowly. She could understand that, if it was as dangerous as he said. "What will we be doing until I have this mastered, then?"

To her surprise, Snape tilted his head considering and asked, voice neutral, "What would you like to do, Rigel?"

She blinked. "Anything?" Was he serious? Her brain flooded her with options and she just stood there, gaping like an idiot.

"Within reason," he confirmed. "Is there any sub-specialty of the field you would like to delve deeper into before we devote your lessons entirely to the art of free brewing?"

Her first thought was Battle Potions, but she squashed it quickly. Even though she'd been extremely curious about them since Master Thompson had let his specialty slip, she knew better than to ask. The subject was carefully controlled by the Guild for a reason.

Snape noticed her deliberation. "What are you thinking?" he prompted.

Grimacing, she admitted, "I was thinking of Battle Potions, but I know you aren't allowed to—"

"Do you?" Snape's black eyes searched hers with interest. "If you were familiar with the rules that govern a Guild-sanctioned Apprenticeship, you would know that there is very little a Master is not permitted to teach his student. The only things truly forbidden are the secrets of another Master's work."

She thought her jaw might have dropped, but she was too distracted to be sure. "They don't regulate it at all? How can that be?"

"It is an old agreement, predating modern government and going back to the very establishment of the first Guilds. An Apprenticeship was a sacred pact in those days. There were no schools, no opportunity for instruction outside of one wizard's willingness to teach another. A condition for the first Masters' agreeing to join such an organization was that the Guild would have no ability to dictate what was or was not passed from Master to student. Nor can any Master be made to take an Apprentice unwillingly. The most the Guild can do is restrict what its members are allowed to distribute to the public." Snape's voice betrayed no interest in the history, but Rigel was fascinated.

"The Guild also sets the standard for achieving a Mastery," she pointed out. "So they do have some input it what ought to be taught in a traditional Apprenticeship."

Snape inclined his head. "In an indirect way, they do. The limits of the instruction, however, are not theirs to dictate."

"So… can we study Battle Potions, then?" she asked, hardly daring to believe it.

"It is not one of my specialties," Snape admitted. "I will look into it. We can begin with area-effect Potions in general and work our way around the topic from there. Very well. That is all for this evening, Rigel. Practice with the cards until you don't burn your fingers."

She nodded, tucking them away in her pocket carefully so they didn't activate and set her robes on fire. That would be embarrassing.

"Be careful pulsing your magic out around other people," her Head of House added as she headed for the door. "It's the same method used to read other wizards' auras, and those with very sensitive auras will feel it as your magic pushes up against them."

"So I can read other auras with this technique as well?" That could be useful.

"It takes significant study to understand the complexities of an aura," Snape said. "It is not like a core; you will not comprehend intuitively what your magic is telling you at first. The only reason this will be useful for free brewing is because you have developed an unconscious understanding of potions via your prolonged exposure to them through conscious imbuing."

"I see. Thank you, Professor." Rigel left the lab deep in thought. Ideas spiraled to the surface and floated for a moment before sinking back down to stew in the dark a while longer.

Despite what Snape said, Rigel did have a rudimentary understanding of auras through her study of suppressing and projecting her own. She wondered if they would be as incomprehensible to her as he assumed.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

Her second week back, the morning post brought with it a package for "Archie" that Rigel grinned to accept. It was very obviously book-shaped, so she tucked it into her bag to examine later, ignoring Draco's outraged curiosity and Pansy's more politely inquiring expression. If this was what she thought it was, she wasn't going to share it with her friends just yet.

Ever since Sirius and Remus had declined to give her and Archie instruction on becoming animagi, Archie had been wheedling away his father's defenses. Harry had conspicuously let the topic drop. Her help wasn't needed, after all; Sirius couldn't really deny Archie anything. Not if he kept at it, at least. Finally, the day before they were due back at school, Archie reported that Sirius had agreed to recommend a book to educate them on the fundamentals.

Rigel fought a triumphant smirk all through breakfast, and when she had a moment to herself to unwrap the package she had to smile full out. _Self Transfiguration_ was an innocuous title and its cover was plain brown leather. Nevertheless, it felt like the Sorcerer's Stone in her hands. Sirius might think that he was only giving them a basic foundation with his recommendation, but Rigel knew better. Between her and Archie, a good book was all they really needed. They could figure almost anything out together.

She had to wait until later that night to contact Archie. He'd told her before they parted that his friend Hermione liked to study by herself for a couple of hours every evening after dinner. That meant that midnight was the best time for her to reach him. It wasn't difficult to loiter in the common room until most people had gone to bed. Draco gave her an odd look as he finally packed up his Charms essay and headed for the dorms. Rigel just smiled and said she'd be in shortly.

As she continued to wait out the last stragglers, Rigel went ahead and took out _Self Transfiguration_ to peruse the introduction. There were a lot of warnings about the dangers of partial transfiguration to living things. It sounded like pretty obvious stuff to her—you didn't try to transfigure half an animal into something, after all, unless you wanted to kill it horribly. It was the same reason Polyjuice was designed to transfigure the whole body. It was also why Metamorphism was such an impressive ability. You just couldn't _do_ live transfiguration in pieces on the fly like that. It took a Transfiguration Mastery level of ability to pull off.

Anyway, it wasn't really as issue, since they would be aiming to achieve a holistic transfiguration. She had heard stories of wizards who could partially transform into their animagus form, but she wasn't sure how true they were. That was likely a very advanced variation on the ability.

At the end of the introduction there was a table of contents. It covered a variety of subjects, including permanent beautification and other self-altering transfigurations. She skimmed past those to the last section, which took up easily half the book, and dove into the theory of animagi as the torches burned lower and the night drew in.

At around one in the morning, she was finally alone. She took out Archie's mirror from her bag and settled into her low backed chair. His mirror didn't have flowers on it and was instead inscribed with briars around the edge. She spoke into it softly. "Harry. It's Rigel, are you there?" They'd agreed to use their assumed names when using the mirrors at school since there was always the chance of someone overhearing.

After a long pause, her reflection blurred and Archie peered back at her. "Rigel? It's only been a week—miss me already?"

"Always," she said. The sarcasm in her voice didn't diminish her smile at seeing him. This really was so much better than writing letters. "I got a delivery today from Sirius. Do you have a minute?"

"I have a lifetime of minutes for you, dear," Archie said on a winning smile. No matter how she practiced, her flattery never sounded that effortless. "Hermione is in the library studying, which means I am amusing myself in my room until she returns."

"How's that going?" she asked, suddenly reminded of his declaration that summer. "Are you really going to start a relationship with the girl?"

"I'm going to try," Archie said seriously. "I know it might make things awkward for you, but you can't deny you've put me in awkward positions a time or two. I won't let it compromise our ruse, of course, but I have to do this, H-Rigel. If I don't, and she falls for someone else in the meantime, I'll spend my whole life regretting it."

Rigel nodded. She could see how much this meant to her cousin and she wasn't going to stand in his way. He had already given up much for their dreams. They both had. She would gladly field questions about her own sexuality and weather remarks to the effect that she was unfaithful to her engagement contract if it meant Archie's happiness. She would do anything for him, and he for her. It was that simple.

"Good luck," she said, smiling sincerely at him. He grinned back, eyes full of gratitude.

"So what did Sirius send you? What we expected?" Archie's face, an exact copy of her own, gained an anticipatory gleam she recognized.

She positioned the mirror so that the title of her new book could be seen. "Think you can get a copy?"

"Undoubtedly," he said when she'd moved the mirror back to her own face. "How is it?"

"I just got it this morning," she reminded him.

He raised an eyebrow. "Exactly. So how is it?"

She laughed softly. "Caught me. It's pretty good so far. It seems like there are a few methods people use to figure out their forms. One of them is learning the Patronus Charm."

"That's a tricky one, isn't it?" Archie frowned.

"It is, and it's not a guarantee anyway. The patronus form sometimes matches the animagus form, but not necessarily," she explained. "Sometimes a strong personal connection will be manifested in the patronus instead."

"Sounds iffy," Archie decided. "What else?"

"Well, there's a potion," she began.

"Yes!" Archie laughed somewhat maniacally through the mirror. "We cannot be stopped!"

"Okay, calm down," she said, laughing a bit at his exuberance. "I was thinking it sounded like the best option, though."

"How long will it take?" Archie asked excitedly. He didn't ask 'how hard is it?' or 'can you brew it?' which she admitted warmed her heart a bit. Archie had such keen faith in her.

"At least two months to brew, and that's if I can get all of the ingredients to start," she admitted. "I'm going to need a vial of your spit, by the way."

Archie's face twisted in disgust. "Ugh, why do I feel like you're always asking for my bodily fluids?"

She sympathized, but there was no way around it. The first chapter of _Self Transfiguration_ had outlined the pros and cons of the various methods. Under a footnote titled "Myths Debunked" the author had noted some of the common misconceptions, one of which required the would-be animagus to hold a mandrake leaf in their mouth for an entire month.

"Not that I don't relish the opportunity, but I promise it's better than the alternative," she said. Much better to soak the leaf in a vial of saliva than to try to eat around it for a month and hope they didn't choke on it in their sleep. "Once the potion is complete, I'll send you your dose and you can take it somewhere you won't be interrupted."

"That sounds suspiciously simple," Archie said.

She rolled her eyes at him. "The potion doesn't _make_ you an animagi. It just allows you to take on the form temporarily. That's how we find out what form we have. Once you know, then you have to actually learn how to do the transfiguration. That's the really hard part."

"Two months just to learn our forms." Archie sighed. "Well, we knew it wasn't going to be easy. I'll send you the…spit."

"Make it two vials," she said with an innocent smile. "Just in case."

"This is why everyone thinks potions brewers are weird," Archie told her.

"It's not for the faint of heart," she agreed easily. That a task was unpleasant didn't mean it wasn't worth doing, in her opinion.

"Won't Dad be surprised when we already know our forms come winter break?" Archie grinned at her mischievously.

She returned it full strength. "Surely he didn't give us a book and expect us not to read it?"

"One day they'll stop underestimating us," Archie said.

"Not anytime soon, though." She said goodbye to her cousin and packed away the mirror carefully in soft cloth. She would peruse the ingredient list for the animagus revealing potion more tomorrow, though she knew just from a quick glance that she'd be ordering at least a couple of things from the apothecary in Hogsmeade. She didn't keep morning dew in stock, and certainly not samples 'untouched by human feet' whatever difference that was supposed to make. It would probably be at least November before she finished the potion, considering how much research was going to go into the ingredient list alone. She ought to have the time, though. She hadn't appreciated just how much time Flint's assignments had taken up until she no longer had them to occupy her evenings.

The room was quiet when she crept in from the corridor and shut the door behind her. She didn't need light to navigate to her bed and slip off her shoes, but as she climbed onto her mattress, the hangings on the bed next to her slid open and Draco's face peered over at her by the light of his wand. He had a book propped open on his knees and she wondered if he'd stayed up to read because he wasn't tired or because he was waiting for her.

"Hey," Draco whispered, setting his book aside. "Is everything all right? You're out later than usual."

Rigel nodded, whispering back, "Had to practice something for Potions. Snape said it would bother other people, so I was waiting until everyone went to bed."

"Oh." Draco's expression relaxed. She felt a bit bad for worrying him. Whether she acknowledged it or not, the events of last year hadn't only affected her. Draco had been there when Snape found her. No doubt the memory colored his concern for the hours she kept. "Did it work?"

"I haven't got the hang of it yet," she said, shaking her head. "That's okay, though. I'll keep trying." And that would be a good excuse for staying up late in the common room the next time she needed to talk to Archie, too.

"Rigel?"

She paused in fluffing her pillow to look over at her friend. Draco's expression was still relaxed, but there was an underlying concern that shone even through the dim light. Rigel put down her pillow and slipped off her bed. She climbed onto his and pulled the curtains shut so they could converse more naturally without worrying about waking their roommates. "What is it, Dray?"

"You've changed," he said simply. "You have this anger in you—I've never felt anger from you like this before. I want to help," he added, gazing at her imploringly. "It feels like you're pulling further away from me, though. I don't know what to do."

"You do more than enough," she assured him. She couldn't help feeling touched at his genuine concern for her wellbeing.

"I feel like I don't know how to reach you, sometimes," he admitted. There was a small crease in his brow that made him look older.

She took his hands carefully. "I'm right here. Sometimes I do get angry, but my anger is not aimed at you, Dray."

"I know," he sighed, clenching his hands around hers a little anxiously.

"I'm very grateful for your understanding, and Pansy's, though I may not always show it," she said softly. "I have changed. I'm sorry if it's hard on you sometimes."

" _I'm_ sorry that I couldn't prevent the things that changed you," Draco said fiercely.

"Sometimes I wish I hadn't experienced them." She took a deep breath and mustered a smile. "If it means no one else did, though, I find I can accept it."

"You _shouldn't_." Draco exclaimed. He dropped her hands and put his own on her shoulders to shake her a little. "You always put others before yourself. It's going to get you in trouble—more trouble, I mean—someday. What if…" he looked away embarrassedly, but steeled himself before pinning her with a distraught look. "What if next time you don't come back, Rye?"

She swallowed, but the emotion was still thick in her voice when she said, "I'll always try to come back, Dray." It was the most she could promise.

"All right," he said. A split second hesitation, then he wrapped her in a quick hug that was so light she barely felt it. She hugged him back just as gingerly, then drew back with a small smile. "Night, Rigel," Draco said, smiling back. He waited for her to clamber back over into her own bed before he doused his wand light.

"Night, Dray."

She lay awake a while longer, wondering what she had done to deserve such a good friend. Well, she thought after a silent moment, she didn't deserve him of course. She was just very lucky. That was okay. She would simply enjoy his friendship while she had it.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

It was the third week in September before Rigel found an evening to steal down to the kitchens and visit her favorite Hogwarts House Elf. She'd waited until dinner was over, so the kitchens were mostly occupied with cleanup when she climbed through the still life painting and waited at one of the tables until Binny was free.

"Young sir!" Binny bounced up and down on her heels and because Rigel was sitting down, they were almost at eye-level. "How is your summer being?"

"Very well, and yours?" Rigel asked.

"Madam Touraine is promoting me to Head Stable Elf," Binny told her. The pride in her voice and carriage was unmistakable.

"Well done! She must really trust you to give you so much responsibility."

"I is being the most experienced," Binny confided. "Still, it is being a great honor. Is young sir practicing his French this summer?"

"Not that much," she confessed. "Can we practice a little?"

"Oui." Binny led her through a series of basic conversational topics, and while Rigel was certainly rusty, she got back into the swing of the language before long.

After almost an hour of somewhat mindless chatter, Rigel asked Binny for some mice, if the kitchens had any, and in no time she had a trio of fat snacks for Treeslider. She bade Binny good evening and made her way up out of the castle and into the growing twilight.

Rigel made it almost to the forest's edge before her feet stopped moving of their own accord and she looked into the trees with increasingly short breath. Backing up a few paces, she breathed deep through her nose and shook her head. What was the matter with her? It was only the forest. She'd been in and out of the outskirts dozens of times in the past three years. She couldn't deny the slight tremble in her legs as she sat on the grass and simply stared at the tree line, unseeing. She hadn't been back there since…

A shudder rippled through her, and she bit down on a slightly hysterical whimper. She could feel the anxiety in her like a physical thing, pulling her shoulders in toward her ribcage and squeezing her lungs into empty sacks. Rigel ruthlessly smoothed her emotional state into eerie, unnatural calm. She would not get worked up over this. It was in the past. Nothing that happened months ago had the power to touch her now. That man was dead. That place was gone.

Wrapped in her artificial serenity, Rigel slowly stood and took first one step, then another toward the looming trees and shadows. She only made it to the first trunk before she had to sit down again and catch her shallow breath. She clenched her fingers in the dirt, wondering how the hell she was supposed to work through this phantom panic when it didn't make any _sense_.

She heard Treeslider before she saw him. _"Juicccy moussse, niccce and sssoft, tasssty sssnack, all for me!"_ She didn't think anyone would believe her if she told them that singing sounded entirely ridiculous in Parseltongue. Nor would they believe that a snake could come up with a surprisingly catchy rhyme scheme—at least, it was catchy in his tongue. She could barely hear the original beneath the translation her brain superimposed.

" _Ssspeaker! You have been gone for lifetimesss,"_ Treeslider complained as his slim, green form broke from the underbrush. She thought he looked a little bigger than the last time she'd seen the snake.

" _Sssomehow I do not think you sssuffered much,"_ she teased the boomslang snake.

" _You wound me, Ssspeaker."_ Treeslider made a show of coiling and uncoiling in agitation. _"Much hasss changed thisss ssseassson. The thessstralsss have ssstolen my nesssting grounds. The new nessst isss not ssso niccce. And the Runessspoorsss, Ssspeaker, they are everywhere."_

" _What isss wrong with Runessspoorsss?"_ she asked, amused. They were not a particularly aggressive species.

" _They bicker like nessstlingsss,"_ Treeslider bemoaned. _"Jussst one isss bad enough, with thossse headssss sssniping at each other. But thisss ssseassson there are many new densss. I can ssscarecccely essscape them."_

" _I am sssorry to hear of your troublesss,"_ Rigel said solemnly. She produced the generous parcel the elves had prepared and said, " _Would it help if you had sssomething to eat?"_

" _Perhapsss,"_ Treeslider hissed. His attempt at nonchalance was ruined by the way his big eyes followed the parcel eagerly as she set it on the ground. She unwrapped it to reveal three fat kitchen mice and the boomslang snake nearly chortled with glee. _"Sssuch a kind ssspeaker. Ssso good to your ssservant."_

" _You aren't my ssservant,"_ she said, frowning. Was that what the snake thought?

" _I watch over the foressst for you, Ssspeaker."_ Treeslider tilted his head in an odd parody of confusion. _"Are you dissspleasssed with my reportsss? Or perhapsss… I ssshould have attacked that man."_

" _Man?"_ she asked, her heart rate accelerating.

" _The one who makesss you sssmell of fear,"_ Treeslider said. He sounded as miserable as a snake could. _"The lassst time you came to the foressst, you were not alone. I ssstayed away, but I sssee I ssshould have defended my ssspeaker."_

" _Not at all,"_ she said, swallowing her memories and leaning forward from her seated position so the snake could look her in the eye. _"I jussst want you to know that you do not have to ssserve me in thisss way. I would ssstill bring you sssnacksss."_

The snake swayed slightly back and forth for a long moment as though thinking. _"Asss your ssservant, I recccieve your favor, Ssspeaker. The Runessspoorsss dare not challenge the ssspeaker's chosssen. I will continue ssserving you and you will reward me with juicccy delightsss."_

She laughed. _"Very well, Treessslider."_ There was no point arguing with the snake. Clearly, he did not feel overly put upon. Rigel stretched her neck as the snake gloated over its prize and asked him, _"Will you ssstay awhile?"_

" _It will take time to devour thessse offeringsss, Ssspeaker."_

She took that for agreement. _"Warn me if anything comesss,"_ she said, closing her eyes. She wanted to try practicing her sensitivity field outside of the castle. She'd been working on pushing out her magic the way Snape described, but it was difficult when everything it came into contact with sent waves of incomprehensible information back at her. There was just too much magic in Hogwarts—it was distracting.

Not to mention the other students. She'd only tried it in the common room once, and it was enough to give her a massive migraine. She felt every person who walked through her shaky field, and each sent a shiver of discomfort down her spine. It felt like static electricity whenever her projected magic touched another person. She had to wonder if that was how Draco felt all the time, bombarded by information that was exhausting to try to sort through.

Rigel hadn't even started practicing with the Exploding Snap cards. She could not yet focus on other things while maintaining her magical field. She slowed her breathing and let the evening air wash over her as she reached for her core. The first step, she'd found, was to gather her magic and pool it within her skin. How much she could pool before releasing it determined how far the resulting magical field would reach. Only when the magic she wanted was pulled from her core could she push it out of her in all directions.

At first, she'd found herself pushing it out in a thin disk around her middle, meaning she only received feedback from things that were three and a half feet off the ground. It took several days of sweat-inducing mental effort to create a full sphere of magic and pulse it away from her like an invisible explosion. Just like explosive energy, she felt the magic fade faster the farther it got from her. Things at the edge of her sphere barely registered while things right next to her lit up like Christmas trees to her magical sense.

Rigel had found she could send a single pulse of her magic pretty far, perhaps as much as fifty feet before she stopped sensing anything from the returns. If she tried to maintain a field around herself, though, she could only hold five feet or so. The field tended to fluctuate erratically, contracting and expanding again as her concentration wavered. In the quiet outdoors, however, she had a much easier time pushing the magic out around her and holding it there. She could feel Treeslider as a little crackle of energy just in front of her. As she focused on him, the energy slowly condensed in her awareness until it represented vaguely his relative shape and size.

" _That itchesss."_ She heard the words as though underwater. Slowly blinking her eyes open, she attempted to maintain the field while answering, but as soon as she spoke it dissipated.

" _Sssorry,"_ she said. The snake had swallowed one of the mice and was curled around the other two contentedly. Rigel arched her back in a stretch. She kept her eyes open and gathered her magic again, this time flinging it out around her as far as she could.

" _Ssssss."_ Treeslider jerked in a wordless hiss of annoyance.

She smiled apologetically, but her attention was far away, focused on the echoes of information coming back to her on waves of magical return. Several things with magic showed up in her mind's eye as she sifted through the knowledge. _"What isss over that way?"_ she asked the snake, pointing off to the right along the tree line. _"Up in the treesss."_ There was a crackling feeling like a dozen tiny spots of energy.

Treeslider flicked his tongue out and said, _"Bowtrucklesss."_

Rigel grinned. _"And there? Sssomething in the ground."_ She indicated a point behind Treeslider and to the left.

" _It's only a nessst of Runessspoors,"_ Treeslider said, coiling a bit tighter around his remaining mice. _"You don't want to talk to them. Ssso annoying. I cccertainly don't have enough miccce to ssshare."_

" _I wouldn't dream of asssking you to ssshare,"_ she assured the possessive snake. She practiced for another fifteen minutes or so before the feedback started giving her a headache. Upon standing, she said, "Want me to walk your miccce into the foressst a bit? It'sss not sssafe to be exposssed while you digessst."

" _Very well,"_ the snake decided, uncurling from the two remaining mice and allowing her to pick them up gingerly as he awkwardly slithered into the trees with his bulging middle.

Rigel took a deep breath and held it as she followed, focusing only on Treeslider's rustling, ungainly form. She blocked out everything but the serpent's trail and made good headway into the forest before her fear reached into her chest and wrung out her heart like a wet rag. She gasped in air and stopped, leaning on a thick trunk to stave off dizziness.

" _Ssspeaker?"_ Treeslider came back and surveyed her with a crooked head. _"You sssmell of fear again."_

" _I'm fine,"_ she said firmly, not sure if she was trying to convince the snake or herself.

" _Thisss isss far enough,"_ Treeslider declared, settling down in the roots of the tree that was propping her up.

Rigel deposited the mice in the circle of his protective coil and said, _"Sssee you later, then."_

She turned back toward the castle, and was relieved to note that it was much easier going the other way. Each step felt a little lighter and by the time she broke the tree line once more her breathing was mostly regular. As she walked back up to the castle, Rigel resolved to visit Treeslider at least once a week from now on. She refused to be ruled by fear.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

The morning of the last Sunday in September, Dumbledore interrupted breakfast with an unexpected proclamation. He stood before the hall until it quieted and said, without a trace of his usual humor, "Tonight there will be a special feast here in the Great Hall. A number of Ministry officials and guests will be present and an important announcement will be made. I know you will all represent our school with pride. Please be in your seats promptly at six o'clock."

The old wizard sat, and chatter broke out across the House tables like quail startled from the brush.

"Finally," Theo said, grinning across the table. "I've been dying of curiosity."

"Dumbledore doesn't sound too thrilled about it," Millicent noted. "Wonder how long this has been in the works."

"Since last spring," Rigel said, thinking back with a mental scowl to the day Riddle and Snape had ambushed her about her magical suppressor. "Riddle was here to meet with Dumbledore about it at least once last term."

"Lord Riddle was here at Hogwarts?" Pansy's expression was bewildered. "Why didn't you mention seeing him, Rigel?"

"I was a bit distracted at the time," she said, shrugging uncomfortably.

Looking back, she was almost certain that was the day he'd done… whatever he'd done to her magic. Rigel had read through the report Dumbledore procured for her several times, but she still wasn't entirely sure what effect Riddle had meant to have on her. The report made it clear that the magical contamination, as she'd come to think of it, hadn't allowed the witch to glean any information at all about her fiancé. The magic she'd transferred to him had simply become his, and once it was gone she wasn't able to sense that bit of magic or exert control over it anymore.

Still, she was not satisfied. He had some reason for it, she just didn't know what yet. She would keep researching.

The day passed slowly as everyone tried to distract one another until dinner. Rigel sat in the common room through the early afternoon, reading through Dumbledore's Alchemy textbook while Pansy and Draco discussed increasingly wild theories as to what was going to be announced that evening.

It was almost a relief when their conversation fell silent. Rigel looked up from the notebook to see Rosier and Rookwood approaching their couch. Rookwood held a stack of white cards in his hand, which he distributed to the three of them with a rare smile. "A more formal invitation will be sent to your families, of course, but I wanted to invite you three personally."

Rigel flipped open the card and read the elegant scroll. _You are cordially invited to the joining of Edmund Rookwood and Alesana Selwyn in sacred matrimony._ The time, date, location and so on were listed on the back. It was to be the following summer, just after Draco's birthday.

Pansy leapt up from the couch and embraced Rookwood with an excited squeal. "I am so happy for you, Edmund. An outdoor ceremony is inspired."

"Thank you," Rookwood said. His deep voice was laced with satisfaction. "It was Alice's idea to ask my uncle for use of the gardens at his reserve."

"Congratulations," Draco said, standing to shake Rookwood's hand once Pansy had stepped back. "Smart move, having the wedding as soon as you graduate. Yours will be a splendid match."

Rigel rose as well and took Rookwood's large hand when Draco was through. "I'm sure the ceremony will be stunning," she said, smiling up at the upperclassman. "I'll remind my father to check the mail so we can RSVP."

"We will be glad to have you," Rookwood said, inclining his head in thanks.

"Indeed," Rosier added, his patience apparently expired. "Having the silver trio will make it a guaranteed success."

"No one calls us that," Draco said firmly as he reclaimed his seat. Rigel and Pansy followed suit and the older boys chose chairs across the small coffee table for themselves.

"They really do, though," Rosier said sadly. "Alas, for your dignity."

"How was your summer?" Pansy asked, cutting off Draco's simmering retort. Rigel thought the girl probably knew exactly how his summer had been, but she gave Pansy points for attempting to keep Draco and Rosier civil. Somehow it was always like oil meeting water with those two.

"Dreadfully uneventful," Rosier said. "I almost wish I'd been at the World Cup, if only for a break from the monotony."

"Excitement isn't everything," Draco said sharply.

"So I've heard," Rosier said, waving a hand dismissively. "I want to hear about Rigel's summer. I hear you spent it abroad. You do seem unusually tan."

She was no such thing after spending a month mostly indoors, but she humored the seventh year. "I was visiting the Darian Gap community in the Americas."

"What were they like?" Rookwood leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands loosely laced. "I've heard the wizards there are entirely closed off from the world."

"Nearly," Rigel agreed. "They are closer to our definition of druids than wizards, really. The villages are too small to support specialized craftsmen. Each wizard makes his own wand or talisman. A lot of their magic doesn't rely on that, though. It's mostly plant-based or ritualistic."

"And you went as part of a Healing outreach," Rosier said. It wasn't really a question, but Rigel nodded all the same. "How did that go?"

"There was an outbreak of tropic fever while I was there," she said.

"He was put under quarantine for ages," Draco added, sending her a look that said he thought it entirely her own fault.

"Goodness, that sounds trying," Rosier said, cocking his head at her.

"It was quite virulent," Rigel agreed. In fact, the fatality rate had been near fifty percent until someone figured out that it was being transmitted through mosquito bites. Once they figured out how to ward villages against the bloodsuckers, infection rates dropped off completely. Fairly sure that her friends did not want the unhappy details, she merely said. "We couldn't save everyone."

Rosier's face went blank with shock at her blunt words and even Rookwood looked taken aback. It was Pansy who broke the awkward silence that followed. "It was so good of you to try, Rigel. I really admire your selflessness. Not many would have left their home and traveled to a strange new place to help those in need, particularly with the risks involved in handling an epidemic."

"It wasn't entirely selfless," Rigel said, smiling softly at her. "I did learn a lot."

"Honestly Pans, Rigel doesn't need more encouragement to put others before himself," Draco said, scowling playfully at her. The others laughed, and conversation moved on to more pleasant topics.

"How is NEWT prep going?" Pansy asked them.

"Fine."

"Awful."

They spoke at the same time and shared a brief smile. "Aldon exaggerates," Rookwood told them.

"Edmund is trying not to scare you," Rosier said, shaking his head. "The coursework is beastly. McGonagall's got us calculating the rate of magical expenditure in time-delayed transfigurations."

"The rate of what?" Draco's brow furrowed. "That sounds more like Arithmancy."

"It is," Rookwood confirmed. "Advanced Transfigurations requires a basic understanding of Arithmancy, however."

"The rate of expenditure changes for every different material, so it's not like you can even memorize the equation once and be done," Rosier said on a sigh.

"That's because the magical coefficient of every material is unique," Rigel said. The four of them turned to stare at her. She blinked at them. "It's not so much that the equation changes as the variable does. Materials that have a higher coefficient don't last as long when Transfigured because the coefficient describes how resistant the material is to magical change."

"How do you know that?" Pansy asked, openly curious.

"It's a basic principle of Alchemy," she said. Rigel remembered having to explain the same thing to Percy and wondered why they didn't teach that to seventh years right off the bat.

"I have heard that Alchemy is Transfiguration by way of Arithmancy," Rookwood said. "Is that accurate?"

"Basically," Rigel said, nodding. "Alchemy uses Arithmetic equations to calculate exact proportions of material and magic while relying on runic arrays to actually enact the Transfiguration."

"Sounds unnecessarily complicated," Rosier commented.

"It is for anything that can be achieved with basic Transfiguration," Rigel agreed. "Supposedly once you get to the upper levels, Alchemy can achieve Transfigurations that no other branch can replicate, but of course you have to be someone like Dumbledore to really take advantage of that."

"It does seem to have interesting applications, though," Pansy said. "At least, you have a better understanding of Transfiguration than we do, and that's Draco's best class."

Draco snorted. "Rigel studies too much." The look he shot Rigel made her think he knew where she'd found the time to pursue such advanced topics and was probably still annoyed that she'd had a time-turner for the entirety of last year. She smiled sweetly at him, aware that he couldn't say anything about the time-turner without getting her interrogated by the Unspeakables for breaking contract. All he could do was glower back at her silently. She had to admit he was good at that.

Eventually, and almost inevitably, the conversation circled around to what everyone was trying to pretend they weren't waiting for. The announcement.

"My uncle knows something," Rookwood said. He sounded certain. "He came to Hogwarts this year for more than just teaching."

"You think there will be creatures involved?" Draco wrinkled his nose. "Like some sort of circus?"

"If there are creatures involved, they won't be the kind you find in your average menagerie," Rookwood reasoned. "Uncle Aurelius is renowned as an expert in dangerous and hard to handle beasts. The only one better in his field is Master Scamander himself."

"Oh good, more danger at Hogwarts," Rosier drawled.

"I'm sure the Ministry has everything under control," Pansy said. After a moment she cracked a reluctant smile. "I sound entirely foolish saying that."

"Utterly barmy," Draco agrees. "The Ministry? In control of something? Bite your tongue."

"The Party will have it in hand," Rookwood said, shrugging unconcernedly.

 _Because they've handled things so well in the past,_ Rigel thought. She didn't say it out loud but Draco's sharp glance and the spike in her head from Dom told her that her feelings on the subject did not go unnoticed.

Rookwood and Rosier left about an hour before dinner, and Pansy rose as well. "You boys ought to smarten yourselves up for dinner. If there's really going to be dignitaries or press, your families will want you to look sharp."

"Mine won't," Rigel said, smirking.

"I'm sure you'll make an effort for my sake then," Pansy said primly.

She would, and the other girl knew it. Sighing, Draco stretched and gestured for Rigel to come along. "Might as well get dressed. If we hurry, Pansy will have plenty of time to tell us what we've done wrong."

"Don't tempt me, boys." Pansy laughed as they scurried off to their room. "And don't forget to change your shoes, Rigel!"

She looked down at her very serviceable black boots. "No one else appreciates you," she told them mournfully. They didn't answer, but if they could she knew they would agree with her.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

The Great Hall did not look as it normally did on an average Sunday in September. It had been decorated. The theme was unclear, but there did seem to be a lot of silver and black. Tapestries depicting witches and wizards of great renown had been hung to cover nearly every available space alone the walls. She recognized the four founders near the Hall entrance, dramatically portrayed in dynamic poses that suggested decisive and inspiring action. Then there was Nicholas Flamel, Adalbert Waffling, Mopsus, Artimisia Lufkin, Falco Parkinson, and even Merlin himself, among others.

The House tables had been largely stripped of their own colors, and shining silver dishes had replaced the plates they normally ate on. The Head table had been modified as well. Where usually Dumbledore sat in the center of the table, his chair only slightly more ornate than the other staff members', now the center of the table was physically elevated on a kind of dais, with three chairs that looked more like thrones to draw all eyes to those seated upon them.

Riddle sat in the center, the very picture of a lord reigning over his court. He glittered faintly in ebony robes stitched with luminescent silver thread. The Headmaster had been shunted to Riddle's left, with the Minister of Magic, by rights the one who should have had the highest consequence, seated at Riddle's right hand. _Not subtle at all,_ she couldn't help but think critically.

Rigel took her seat between Pansy and Draco without commenting on the new décor or seating arrangements. She did watch the others exchange wary glances up and down the table, but most of the students in Slytherin House clung to dignity and refrained from gaping at the dais with open confusion. She saw a couple of Gryffindors actually point and wanted to smile, but when she remembered who they were pointed at, the amusement dried up like spilt coffee, leaving only a ring of crusty emotional residue in its wake.

At precisely six o'clock, the doors to the Great Hall swung closed of their own accord, barely missing the heels of a couple of young Hufflepuffs who'd cut it too close. Everyone looked expectantly at the Head table, where the teachers sat with inscrutable expressions. The moment stretched into awkwardness before Dumbledore began to rise. As soon as the older wizard made to take his feet, Riddle stood smoothly and spread his hands wide. The Headmaster sank into his seat again with a faintly amused expression, and Riddle began speaking as though he hadn't noticed Dumbledore moving at all.

"Good evening, students, staff, Minister. Thank you all for joining me on this special occasion." Riddle didn't exactly smile, but his features nevertheless gave the impression of pleasure. "Tonight we have a great announcement. Some of you are about to be faced with an opportunity that comes along but once in a generation. For a determined few, this opportunity may define the trajectory of your lives." The Hall was filled with rapt faces and students leaning forward in their seats to see and hear better. "Before we get to that, however—let us feast!"

Riddle clapped his hands and food materialized on the tables to the tune of hundreds of disappointed sighs. The man certainly was sadistic.

The clatter and chatter of silverware and students echoed up and down the tables. Rigel studiously ignored it, serving herself vegetables and potatoes with her head down and her eyes focused on the table in front of her. Once she'd filled her plate, however, she found she had no appetite. Her stomach was churning. She had a premonition of impending plots twisting itself through her guts and no amount of lovely House Elf cooking could break through the welling nausea.

"You're not eating," Pansy said from her left. Rigel glanced over at her through her fringe.

"Not hungry," she admitted.

"Don't work yourself up over this," Draco advised lowly from her other side. "It won't be as bad as you seem to think."

Rigel knew, somehow, that he was wrong. It was going to be exactly as bad as she thought. Something about Riddle's smugly confident expression had told her as much. Still, she smoothed her emotions under a blanket of Occlumency and smiled politely to her friends. "Sure." They both looked disappointed at her rather obvious dissembling, but at least they left her to pick at her meal in silence.

As dessert was at last cleared away, the doors opened once more to allow a swarm of people to filter in from the Entrance Hall. Witches and wizards with cameras and quills hurried to crowd the Head table with shouted questions and flashing bulbs. Riddle stood tall before them, his particular not-smile managing to convey pride and benevolence all at once. Minister Fudge got to his feet hastily to beam at the press like a trained monkey. Dumbledore was the last to rise, slow dignity and a vague sense of disapproval emanating from his wizened figure.

With a wave of his hands, Riddle quieted the ravenous reporters. The students fell silent as well and a fresh wave of anticipation thrummed through the room. "The time has come to reveal the purpose of tonight's gathering. This year, Hogwarts will be host to a grand event—the first and only competition of its kind. The True Triwizard Tournament!"

At his declaration, the candles in the room flared with light and everywhere in the audience gasps and sighs of amazement rippled.

"What _does_ he mean?"

"There hasn't been a Triwizard Tournament in _ages_."

The whispered conjectures spread through the Hall like scuttling creatures in the shadows. At another pass of Riddle's hand, the murmuring settled into a hush. Rigel's stomach clenched against her bad feeling as the dark-haired politician explained.

"For many years in our society a great debate has dominated the collective sphere. What makes a great witch or wizard? Is it nature or nurture? Luck or destiny? Does power reside in the mind… or in the blood?" Riddle allowed the shock to permeate his audience before his face relaxed into a predatory smirk. "This year at Hogwarts, we shall answer that question once and for all. A call will be sent out this very night to all corners of the world. Let any witch or wizard who believes in his or her greatness come to Hogwarts—and _prove it_."

"Circe's tits, he can't be serious." Theo's face was an open study of incredulity, and he was not the only one. Rigel's eyes slid from one shocked expression to the next. There was the leader of the S.O.W. Party, famed wizard of power and blood purest extraordinaire, declaring the question of blood supremacy _unresolved_.

For a moment, she wondered if he'd gone mad. He wanted to put the question of blood prejudice to a public test on the international stage? Then she realized what the end game would inevitably be. A pureblood would win the tournament, and the so-called debate would be dealt a killing blow in front of all and sundry. Riddle was gambling the foundation of his party—to win eternal vindication for his cause.

The press clambered with questions, but Riddle wasn't through. "In one month's time, on Samhain's Eve, the preliminary participants will be announced. A total of nine young witches and wizards will be chosen to fight for the chance to represent their communities. While contestants will not be excluded by blood or background, there will be certain restrictions. In order to present a fair contest of each category, the tournament organizers have chosen an age group that, we believe, best represents the potential of young magic wielders without restricting the pool of talent unnecessarily. For that reason, this tournament will be open to all witches and wizards between the ages of fourteen and seventeen."

The uproar was instantaneous. Younger students took to their feet in outrage at being excluded, while those fourth-year and above students whooped with wild delight.

"Why have an age range at all?" Millicent did not look particularly pleased to be included; mostly she seemed puzzled by the criteria. "Wouldn't the older students automatically out-perform the younger ones?"

"Depends on the criteria they use to determine participants," Blaise said, pitching his voice lower to cut through the din rather than trying to talk over it. "Lord Riddle said only nine will get to compete. That's not very many, if every teenager in the whole world gets to apply."

Rigel tried to un-grit her teeth, but it wasn't easy. With the cut-off at fourteen, at least some of her friends were guaranteed to get caught up in this tournament nonsense.

A flash of light from Dumbledore's fingers surprised most of the students into silence, at least long enough for the Headmaster to say, with remarkable evenness, "Please allow Tom to finish his explanation, students. Once the announcement is over, you may all go to your dormitories to discuss the news at length."

Riddle shot Dumbledore a look that was hard to read. Rigel thought he might be annoyed at the Headmaster's use of his first name. The politician raised his hands once more and said, ever so benevolent, "I know that some of you are disappointed. Rest assured that this event will be equally as thrilling to watch as to directly compete. The tournament committee has gathered expert minds from every field to create for you all this spectacular trial of talent, versatility, and will. From Samhain Day until Yule, the first nine chosen will undergo fierce preliminary trials, until at last one wizard from each category will rise to the fore. After the New Year, the real competition begins: one pureblood, one halfblood, and one muggleborn will go head-to-head in an all-out contest to decide who will be the winner of the True Triwizard Tournament and claim the title of Blood Champion for once and for all!"

Applause broke out spontaneously, and Rigel couldn't help but flatten her lips in despair of her classmates. Was no one considering the consequences of the kind of competition Riddle was describing? Could they not see the way this tournament would rip at the deepest divides in their society, inflaming old prejudice and giving outlet to the worst kind of superiority in every way? Could they see nothing beyond imagined glory and the base desire for gratuitous entertainment?

"Lord Riddle! What will the prizes be?" One of the reporters made himself heard over the noise and everyone settled down to hear the answer.

"Is eternal glory not enough?" Riddle laughed lightly at the man's stammered retraction. "But of course, there will be incentives. How else are we to attract the best and brightest the Wizarding World has to offer? For the nine semi-finalists, a cash prize of 500 Galleons will be awarded." He paused to allow the applause at that to die out before continuing. "The three Blood Representatives who advance to the finals will each receive 1000 additional Galleons, as well as a full scholarship to the secondary institution or Guild program of their choice, upon the completion of their regular schooling. We have partnered with nations worldwide to ensure that any finalist from anywhere on earth will be afforded the very best in advanced educational opportunities."

There was a great deal more applause at this. Rigel supposed uncharitably that it was hard not to support educating promising young people. "As for the Blood Champion, whoever that may be, he or she will win an all-expense-paid world tour, where the Champion will meet influential and outstanding witches and wizards from participating nations in a wide variety of fields. The Champion will earn one other prize as well. Would you like to see it?" The encouraging cheers did not leave any doubt that everyone would, if Riddle didn't mind, very much like to see whatever it was.

Riddle clapped his hands twice and smoke briefly obscured him. When the black fog evaporated a moment later, Riddle was holding a shining staff of purest silver. He lifted it horizontally above his head and declared, "Behold, the Rod of Zuriel!" From where she sat, Rigel could see that the body of the rod was wound with ropey filigree, but what drew the eye was the massive red stone set into the nest-like cradle at its top. It looked like a ruby, but she'd never seen a ruby so large, nor so perfectly red. A blood gem. How unbearably on the nose. Riddle turned slowly left then right, allowing everyone who wanted a glimpse to bask in the shining beauty of the staff. "This glorious staff will amplify the magic of any who possess it. An unparalleled tool deserving of a matchless master. The Blood Champion will be awarded its allegiance!"

A shiver went down her spine at his phrasing. Not the staff but its _allegiance_. Was it sentient? Rigel hoped not. She'd had enough of sentient stones to last a lifetime.

"Sir, a question from the Daily Prophet!"

"Yes, Miss Skeeter," Riddle said, giving an indulgent nod to the witch in acid green as he lowered the staff and placed it before him on the Head table.

"How will the tournament committee ensure the contest is fair?" Skeeter's voice dripped with sweetness. "Will the judges be above reproach?"

It was a good question. There was simply no world in which Riddle would allow a halfblood or a muggleborn to win his tournament. But how would he maintain the appearance of impartiality?

"There will the three separate stages, all judged in different ways, to avoid any murmurings of partiality," Riddle said smoothly. "When the various magical institutes around the world nominate their candidates, two dozen randomly selected school board members and representatives of the educational departments of various governments will be invited to participate in narrowing the field down to just nine participants. In the preliminary stages, a panel of judges, equally balanced in terms of blood status of course, will preside over the tasks, scoring candidates on a variety of metrics, some of which are, due to the nature of these preliminary tasks, unavoidably subjective. When the final three are chosen, however, the scoring changes. The final events will be measured according to a transparent rubric that corresponds directly to how a representative performs in the challenge. The winner will be determined according to his or her score in each of the final challenges, and so no one can say that it was subjectivity that ultimately determined whether a pureblood, halfblood, or muggleborn would become tournament champion."

"You certainly seem to have thought of everything, Lord Riddle," Rita Skeeter simpered.

It was a rather convoluted plan, Rigel thought, but it did upon first recitation give off an illusion of fairness. That alone made her suspicious.

"Why not use the Triwizard Cup?" another reporter asked loudly.

"That artifact's properties do not lend itself to our needs," Riddle said, sounding only a little apologetic. "Its choices are mysterious, after all, and we want there to be no question of integrity in this tournament."

"For what criteria will the preliminary candidates be chosen?"

"Ah, that is an excellent question!" Minister Fudge spoke loudly, clearly unable to hold himself back from the press conference any longer. "You see, this tournament is not necessarily about intelligence or book smarts alone. The candidates that become our preliminary contestants will have to be well rounded. Strong ability across multiple subjects is preferred, and the candidates will additionally be screened for creative problem-solving ability, work ethic, good character, and, of course, magical strength. Anyone can self-nominate, but recommendations _will_ carry weight."

"Minister, is the Department of Games and Sports going to finance the tournament?"

"Ah, not fully, and we are accepting donations at this time," Fudge said, clearing his throat before adding, more loudly, "Though the Ministry of Magic is proud to sponsor the True Triwizard Tournament, I would like to thank Lord Riddle and the S.O.W. Party for conceptualizing the event and spearheading the planning committee. I would also like to thank Headmaster Dumbledore for agreeing to the use of the school and grounds in this manner. The good headmaster's support for the tournament logistics has been invaluable."

There was polite applause, but it only lasted a few moments before the reporters flew into a litany of inquiries once more. Rigel started to tune them out when the question of security arose and the entire conference began to devolve into the Minister weakly assuring the press that another incident like that of the World Cup was well outside the realm of possibility.

She turned this new horror over in her mind slowly, almost numb to its enormity. She actually felt a bit better, knowing what all the fuss was about now. It could have been much worse, she reasoned. What if Riddle had wanted to implement some new curriculum at Hogwarts that didn't include Potions? She shuddered at the thought and wondered how her mind had even conceived such evil. A tournament wasn't the end of the world. She would resignedly witness her friends making fools of themselves trying to get nominated and otherwise ignore the whole proceeding. It had nothing to do with her, and she would not allow the spectacle to distract her from her studies.

After another ten minutes of questions, Riddle finally cut the session short. "The Department of Magical Games and Sports will release a statement in the morning detailing all that we have covered tonight and more. Thank you all for your time. I wish you a pleasant good evening."

The reporters left, reluctantly but inevitably. When the Hall had returned to relative quiet, Riddle addressed the seated students again.

"Hogwarts is one of the few all-pure institutions left in the world. You are the bastions of our tradition, our culture; the pride of this community rests in your hands this year, students." Riddle looked down over the House tables with indulgent admonishment, like a mother reminding her children to eat their vegetables. "I trust that each of you will uphold the dignity of your blood over the coming year. Prepare to show the world what Hogwarts has to offer. To those of you who would compete: good luck."

With that, Riddle reverently picked up the Stick of Zuriel or whatever he'd called the silver staff and left the Hall. Dumbledore dismissed them all soon after, and Rigel joined the flood of Slytherins flowing down into the dungeons like a very talkative river.

"Who do you think they'll pick?" Millicent asked. "There are a number of talented students who qualify, though I suppose there's no guarantee that someone we know will get chosen."

"There has to be at least one from Hogwarts, don't you think?" Theo raised his eyebrows meaningfully. "After all, it's being hosted here. How embarrassing would it be for the Ministry if none of us got to compete?"

"What a convoluted tournament." Blaise's voice was neither approving nor disapproving, merely factual. "No doubt the reports will be confused and sensational tomorrow morning."

"That's why the DMGS is releasing a statement," Pansy reminded him. "They aren't giving people much time to apply. I wonder if that was deliberate?"

"Probably to cut down on the number of applicants the committee has to sort through," Draco said.

"Will your father be on the committee?" Millicent asked.

"I'm going to write and ask him tonight," Draco said, scowling slightly. "I can't believe he didn't tell me about this."

"Probably knew you'd tell your friends," Theo guessed.

As they approached the corridor that branched off toward Snape's office, Rigel peeled away from the crowd.

"Rigel?" Draco frowned at her as the others slowed to see where she was going.

"I've got to talk to Snape about something," she said, waving them on. "I'll meet you back in the common room."

In truth, she didn't have any pressing matters for her Head of House. She just didn't want to listen to her friends over-discuss the tournament for the next hour. If she could stall long enough in Snape's office, they might be done talking about it by the time she got back.

"Are you going to ask for a nomination!?" Nott's voice was both incredulous and admiring. "Working fast, aren't you?"

Rigel did not disguise the look of distaste on her face. "Not on your life."

She took her time walking through the dungeon halls. What was she going to give Snape as the reason for her visit? There was one thing she had been meaning to ask him about, only there hadn't seemed a good time to bring it up. As she researched magical transference in her free time, she'd become more and more concerned about what Riddle had intended that day in the spare classroom. Rigel wanted to ask Snape if he'd noticed Riddle doing anything to her magic, but she was afraid to know the answer.

What if he had known what Riddle was doing and hadn't told her? She had to admit that would hurt. Rigel knew Snape didn't approve of the way she'd handled her magic last year, but she didn't like to imagine that the Potions Master would go so far as to allow her to be violated in that manner. She could feel resentment threatening to climb up the column of her throat so she swallowed it down forcefully. She didn't know anything for certain. Perhaps it was past time she asked.

She knocked on the familiar office door. There was a longer pause than normal before Snape's voice called for her to enter, and he sounded a bit off. Wondering if she'd come at a bad time, Rigel turned the silver knob and pushed. She'd only taken a couple of steps before she stopped, hand still on the door and took a steadying breath. Riddle was in Snape's office, sitting at his desk as though he had any right to the Potions Master's seat.

"Forgive me, Professor. I'll come back tomorrow." She made to back out of the office but Snape's hand on the door's edge stopped her. She narrowed her eyes slightly, briefly contemplating letting go of the handle and walking out anyway, but the look in Snape's eyes dissuade her. He was staring at her in resigned frustration, and a flick of his gaze had her coming back into the office completely so that he could shut the door behind her.

"Just the boy we were talking about, Severus." Riddle appeared quietly satisfied, and the pleased glint in his eye provoked her to an open frown.

"Indeed," Snape's inflection revealed nothing. He conjured two chairs and bade her to sit.

Rigel sank slowly into the chair, content to ignore Riddle for as long as possible. "Was there something you required of me, Professor?"

Her Head of House pressed his lips together and shifted his stare to the indolently lounging Riddle. "Perhaps you should explain, Lord Riddle."

"Of course, Severus. Mr. Black—may I call you Rigel?" His smile was as fake as a Diagon Alley love charm. She jerked her head in a sharp negation but he seemed not to notice. "Severus was just telling me of his plans to nominate you for the tournament."

There was a dull buzzing in her ears and she blinked rapidly. She could not have heard him correctly. Her brain replayed the words in her head, confirming the dark horror that was building in her chest. "I don't understand." The words were faint and scarcely intelligible, but it was the best she could do as a hole of raw panic opened up inside of her.

"The True Triwizard Tournament," Riddle said, still smiling. Except there was no humor in his eyes and the smile held the aggressive edge of barred teeth. "Severus was saying, and I quite agree, that you would be the perfect candidate for Hogwarts to put forth."

Rigel turned to stare at Snape. There was simply no way that he would ever do such a thing to her. Would he? She searched his blank expression and found no reassurance. After an awkwardly long silence in which she begged him with her eyes to refute the awful man sitting _in his chair_ , Snape's eyes flickered, every so briefly, toward Riddle and back.

She nearly gasped with relief, but managed to school her expression before it betrayed her. Snape had not wanted this. It was all Riddle. Again. Summoning her very best apologetically regretful expression, Rigel widened her eyes and bit her lip before saying. "That's very kind of you, Professor. I'm afraid I don't have time for such an undertaking this year, however. As you know, I have a full schedule."

Snape let the tiniest of grimaces slip onto his face and said, "I'm afraid I must insist, Ri—Mr. Black. It is very important that Hogwarts make a good showing for this event."

"Then it might be best to ask an older student," Rigel said reasonably.

"We are not asking another student," Riddle told her, voice chiding. "We are nominating _you_."

The use of 'we' did not escape her. She didn't know what Riddle thought he would gain by forcing Snape to nominate her, but he was out of his mind if he thought she would be participating in his circus. "I am honored," she lied. "Still, I won't be accepting. I hope you find someone suitable."

She made to rise, but Riddle's face fell into a hard glare and she found she couldn't complete the gesture. Merlin, but he was scary when he stopped pretending to be a normal person.

"You _will_ be Hogwarts' representative for the tournament, Rigel." Even her name on his lips made her want to snarl with aberrance.

Lifting her chin, she glared back with all her might. "You cannot _force_ me to participate, Mr. Riddle."

"Control your temper, Mr. Black," Snape cut in sharply. When she looked at him, the worry for her that lined his face was the only thing that kept her from snapping back.

"With all due respect, Professor, I will not go along with this. Nominate me all you like. Even if they pick me, I will decline to compete. Please fine another candidate." Rigel thought she'd kept a civil tone, but there was still a silent warning in her Head of House's eyes. _So be it,_ she thought. _If I have to defy even Snape to avoid this tournament, I will._

To her surprise, Riddle merely smiled again. "You have thirty days to change your mind. If you remain uncooperative, I will devise a means to change it for you."

"What does that mean?" Rigel stiffened her spine against the thought that he would use nefarious means to control her somehow. Even Riddle could not get away with the Imperious Curse, but she did not put anything past the abhorrent politician.

"No one is un-persuadable," Riddle told her. The way he said it, emotionless as a remark on the color of the sky, was the most ominous thing about it.

"You have nothing I want," she asserted. She couldn't think of a bribe that would be worth the dreadfulness of getting wrapped up in his little opera. No amount of money or knowledge was worth that.

"We shall see."

She stared in incredulous fury at the wizard before her. He thought he could just make her do something she didn't want to do? Let him try. Rigel kept her glare up until she felt the familiar flash of pain that was Dom's warning behind her eyes. She broke his gaze at once and stood. "If that is all, I best get back to the common room. Good evening, Professor."

Without waiting for a reply, she fled the office. It was only halfway back to the common room that she realized her hands were shaking. Closing her eyes, she slumped against a cold stone wall and let the rage crash over her. How _dare_ he? What the hell did he think he was playing at? And Snape just _stood_ there and _let_ him—

With a slightly shaky laugh, she realized that was what upset her the most. Was her professor really so spineless? What did Riddle have over him, that he bowed to the man's every whim? She grimaced against the bitterness and straightened slowly. What did it matter, really, why Snape capitulated to Riddle's insistence? All that mattered was what she would do next. Rigel was on her own, that much was clear. That was fine. She would be her own support, as always.

Dizzy with the swirling implications of the night, Rigel made her way back to the common room and pleaded a headache when her friends waved her toward their chairs. She retreated to her room and dug in her trunk for a certain mirror. Archie needed to know about the tournament. At the very least, it meant many more eyes on Hogwarts than they'd even anticipated. The ruse would be tested that year like never before.

-0

[SsSsSs]

-0

"Must you aggravate the boy every time you encounter him?" Severus was hard-pressed not to let his expression betray his dismay as he locked and warded the door after Rigel Black's abrupt exit.

"He purposely provokes my displeasure," Lord Riddle said unconcernedly. "Eventually, he will learn respect. That, or he will suffer the consequences."

Severus suspected it would be the latter. Rigel had very little sense of self-preservation, apparently. "How will you convince him?" he asked. He very much doubted the average inducement would appeal to a boy like Rigel Black.

Riddle's expression turned sardonic. "How would you go about it?"

Severus gave it honest consideration. His lord would accept nothing less. "It won't be enough to offer something he wants. Black could easily agree to participate and then make a poor showing to spite you." Riddle let out a noise of agreement. "You will have to offer him something he cannot afford to refuse. What that may be…" Severus lifted a shoulder. "I've no idea what he might value so much."

"He's a fourteen-year-old boy. It will not be difficult to discover," Riddle said confidently. After a contemplative silence, the dark-haired man shook his head and refocused. "Regardless, I had another reason for seeking you out, Severus."

He had wondered when Riddle would get around to what he'd originally come down to the dungeons to speak about. Certainly neither had expected Rigel to walk into the office so blithely. Severus suspected that Riddle would have waited until the end of the month to inform Rigel of his nomination, had the opportunity not presented itself so invitingly.

"The Potter girl," Riddle said, and Severus' attention snapped back to him in surprise.

"What about her?" he drawled, conveying to the best of his vocal ability that the girl ought to be of no concern to Riddle. She was of concern to no one but him, for the moment.

"I need you to separate the boy from his attachment to her. Regulus intimates that the girl has undue influence over our would-be champion." Riddle fixed Severus with a stern look. "Black cannot afford the connection, nor the distraction."

Severus paused for as long as he dared before answering. He had to think of some way to divert the politician's intentions. How had the man even known that Severus was in any way connected with Potter? "That will be prohibitively difficult, my lord. The two are closer than most siblings. Black would no sooner relinquish Harriett Potter than he would give up studying Potions."

"You will persuade him otherwise." Riddle appeared determined to pursue this course, and Severus couldn't help but wonder who had suggested this ill-advised plan to the politician. "Rigel Black is to be the perfect poster-boy for Pureblood preeminence. He cannot be so closely connected to a Halfblood."

So Riddle did intend for Rigel to win his tournament. Snape had suspected as much, but to have it as much as confirmed still lodged a weight in his stomach. Was it fate, that his student sought neither attention nor hassle yet was unable to escape either? "It may not be possible," Severus cautioned his lord carefully. "Could you not leverage their relationship instead?"

Lord Riddle tilted his head, considering. "As long as they are so attached to on another, both are vulnerable," he mused.

That was not quite what he meant. Severus offered, "A symbol of Pureblood who has strong ties to Halfbloods and Muggleborns would be more sympathetic to the moderates. Rigel's affection for his cousin will appeal to those who otherwise wouldn't support him as champion."

He had the satisfaction of seeing Riddle's eyebrows rise. "Interesting assertion, Severus. Are you certain that isn't your own sympathies talking?"

"If it is, my point is sound," Severus said, raising a brow of his own. "In addition, consider the girl herself: a talented young inventor, heiress to the Potter line. Her attachment to Rigel may be the leverage we need to win her to our side."

"You praise her." Riddle looked fascinated now. Not the best of indications, but at least he had successfully diverted the man's attention.

"Her ability speaks for itself," Severus said flatly. "Add to that the fact that she has the favor of the Aldermaster already, and you see why she is not as dependent on my good will as it seems. Her ideas are too compelling for the field to ignore. Better to have her in our corner before she becomes an unstoppable force in the academic community."

Riddle sat up straighter, looking at Severus as though he'd never seen him before. "And if I were to insist, Severus? If I told you that you must alienate the girl from her cousin in the next six months?"

Severus's gaze was steady as he looked at the powerful man across from him and said, "I would tell you it cannot be done. Beyond all that I have already mentioned, I have a contractual apprenticeship with both Rigel Black and Miss Potter. I can neither dissolve nor undermine either agreement without losing my own standing in the Guild. Regretfully, my lord, I am not the man for this task. If there is a way to separate those two, it is beyond my sphere of influence."

Riddle's gaze glittered with captivated curiosity. "Do you truly believe she can be persuaded to our side?"

"She will go where her cousin goes," Severus said slowly. That much he was sure of. "The boy will have to be convinced first. He doesn't like you," he added, in case Riddle had any delusions on that front.

"I don't require him to like me," Riddle said, looking amused. "Whether he wants to or not, he will become a symbol of our Party. When he wins this tournament and proves decisively that pure blood wins out, he will be ours by default. The people will rally behind him."

"Can a schoolyard tournament really accomplish so much?" Severus wondered aloud.

"Everyone loves a good sporting match," Riddle said, smiling slowly. "This spectacle will be like nothing they've ever seen. People who never thought they had a stake in blood politics will be choosing sides. That is the power of entertainment."

He suppressed the urge to widen his eyes and instead allowed the ripples of thought disturbed by that pronouncement to propagate silently. Severus could not shake the sense that Riddle was entirely correct in his assessment of the masses.

After a final instruction to keep pressure on Rigel Black regarding acceptance of his place in the tournament, Lord Riddle took his leave. Severus stayed seated a while longer before retiring. He had much to reflect upon. It was fortuitous, perhaps, that Rigel had requested to learn Battle Potions this term. Almost as though he knew what was in store for him. All Severus could do was prepare his student as best he could for what awaited. There was nothing else for it.

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[end of chapter six.]

A/N: Well, that's it! A mere 25,000 words ^^. I promise it was only meant to be 15k or so. The plot just keeps running away from me… but I will catch it. Eventually. Thank you all so very much for reading! I hope you are as excited as I am for the year to come.


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